


Hanging The Moon

by FaiaHae



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate History, Alternate Universe - Gods & Goddesses, Canon-Typical Violence, Dad Gabriel Reyes, Demigods, Fatal Injury, Loss of Limbs, M/M, Major Character Injury, Monster Reaper | Gabriel Reyes, Mythology - Freeform, Old West, Reaper | Gabriel Reyes Redemption, Sombra and Jesse are siblings, They get better but that's where that's at, Vampire Hanzo Shimada, Vampires, World War II, falling in love slowly and painfully, suffocation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-08
Updated: 2019-04-08
Packaged: 2020-01-06 14:14:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 24
Words: 20,435
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18390056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FaiaHae/pseuds/FaiaHae
Summary: A century's a long time to go without falling in love.A century's a long time for a plan to come togetherA century's a long time to miss a husband, a father, a mentor.It's been over a hundred years, and Jesse McCree has gotten used to the world as it was and as it is.Things are about to change.





	1. We didn't start the fire

Jesse McCree had a bit of a bad reputation with the legal system.

 

He'd been running from the law about as long as there'd been a law to run from, as much as you could consider the sheriff's word back when the west was first being settled. Civilization didn't much like him, and he didn't much like it, since he'd come into the "New World" the child of a Mexican immigrant and...well, somebody. there had to have been somebody.

 

Not that he remembered anyone. He remembered his mother, her face, her long hair, her blood on the sand of the Mojave and the last touch of her hand before she was gone forever. When he was a kid, he thought he might have met his father. Sometimes in bars there was a shadowy figure in the corner that would call him over and buy him food, ask him if he'd found a way to spend his days, if he was eating well. The encounters were dream-like and ran through his memory like sand, but whenever he found himself alone at the table the food was still there, and he didn't get chased out for stealing it. 

 

Then he turned 20, and things started to change.

He'd woken up with a pain under his skin that felt like fire, and when he'd finally ripped his shirt off and twisted in the mirror, there was a brand on his back.

 

It wasn't like the one he had on his shoulder- the skull of the deadlock gang- it was inky black, radiating red around it like someone had tattooed him in his sleep, only....

 

Only the symbols on it were in a language that he couldn't look at too long because they made his head swim. concentric circles and twists that looked like the inner mechanism of a lock. There were only three words on it he could read- in the inside of the outermost circle-

 

_ Vaya con dios _

 

Jesse had done a pretty bad job of it, all things considered. He'd been in gangs, been shot more times then he could count, chased trouble across the west until the west was won, and in 1880, when the trains had reached the center of the country and the cattle didn't need him quite so bad, he'd looked in the mirror and realized that besides his hair growing longer, his face hadn't changed. And by the time the century turned, Jesse McCree knew he was going to look like this forever.

 

But it wasn't so bad. He made bank in the prohibition, traveled wherever he pleased, and met others like him. But not...really like him. Not until Sombra.

 

He'd run into Sombra enough times to recognize her, though it was good that he was quick to forgive, and she’d had him figured out long ago. She'd walked into his speakeasy and paid him back for a drink he'd bought her in 1865, back when he was still pretending to like women to keep face with the deadlocks. They'd had a laugh about it, got to talking about the war and where they'd been (Sombra had chosen the worst possible year to be in Germany, and she declared she was never returning, McCree had actually been in China and missed the whole thing) and it was hours before Jesse tried to be subtle about asking the question.

 

"Who are your parents, then?"

 

Sombra had laughed at him.

 

"Same as yours."

 

And in all the years they'd known each other since, she'd never given him the whole truth about what she meant, but Jesse was sure it wasn't as simple as that. Sombra could melt into the shadows and come out in any connected part of the shade. (further at night, not across water, and not at all during the full moon). Her tattoos went all the way to her elbows, and they glowed like lightning when she threw her power around. But she was as close to family as Jesse had ever had, and he went where she did from then on after.

 

And where she went was Oregon. 

 

Jesse McCree wasn’t much for settling down, but he liked it here. He liked his sister, he liked the forests, and he liked the small towns full of quirky people. And he liked learning enough that when Sombra set up shop in a small college town, he went with her and got a couple degrees- enough to start teaching. And when enough time had passed that people started to look at him sideways, family paid off and Sombra came up with a solution. 

__

 

It’d been that first real meeting, in 1922, when she first made her offer, but it hadn’t been without strings then. 

 

The place wasn’t quiet- Jesse’d had some help padding the walls, and sometime during their conversation Sombra had propped her elbows up on the bar and leaned in conspiratorially, as though they were already old friends.

 

“You know, your spellwork’s shoddy. I could help you with that if you’d consider sharing some of your business. Hard for an honest girl to make a living these days.”

 

Jesse snorted.

 

“What’s that got to do with you? And I’ll have you know my smith’s just fine.” He rapped his left hand against the metal of his forearm

She batted her eyelashes.

“Are you implying that i’m  _ shady, Vaquero? _ ”

“You certainly don’t make your living selling dresses, _ Sombra. _ ”

 

She grinned. “ _ Sombra. Me gusta eso. Pero, si me crees tan sospechosa ¿como sabes que no llamaría la policía para que saquen la competencia?” _

 

Jesse’s hands paused halfway through wiping down the counter. That was a threat if he’d ever heard one. He narrowed his eyes at her. 

_ “no lo harías.”  _

She grinned, flipping her glass with a kind of finality that sent chills down his spine.

_ “Usted no debería ser tan informal con sus rivales. Al rato nos vemos.” _

She left, and an hour later, the prohibition knocked his door down. He was long gone with his money and most of his supply, and Sombra didn’t stop taunting him about it for  _ decades.  _

 

The second time, it was 1934, and they were sitting in the same bar they’d met in, in an empty town. No one lived out here anymore, not since the mining towns collapsed. No one was resettling the dust bowl, but they’d both found they had no trouble walking through the storms. Jesse had been out here for weeks, not eating, wondering if each storm would be the one that finally filled his lungs and killed him. Sombra had arrived on a night when the dust storm wiped out the moon, and sat next to him as though no time at all had passed. 

 

She’d offered him a cigar and lit it for him with the tip of her finger. There was no fanfare this time. No game to be played. 

 

“There’s nothing for you here anymore,  _ Vaquero. _ Come with me. I’ve found someone who can modify that seal you’ve got on your back.”

 

In the spluttering light of the cigar, Jesse could see the marks on Sombra’s neck, curling up from her spine. He knew that somewhere at the heart of those swirls and symbols, there were the same three circles. The same words, and the same wish from a father who was long gone. 

 

He took a deep drag, for strength, and then he handed it back. 

 

“There are still people out there who need my help.”

She huffed at him, but when he got up from the bar and went out into the storm she went with him. 

 

In 1939 they were in England, and Sombra was disappearing during the nights to wreck hell on the Axis side, and Jesse began to doubt. She’d done good with the power she had, and he knew it had come from modifying the seal. But he’d seen so much by then, and he knew there had to be a price for power. 

 

Still, in the trenches, when the gas came down and he was the only one standing in trenches full of good men, good men gone, he wished there was more he could have done. 

 

And the years wore on him- standing in front of hoses to protect kids, watching Sombra use the wind to blow mace back into the face of police officers in 1967 in front of the draft offices, waiting for her to come home after she hitched a ride on a deployment to Vietnam. 

 

She came back in 1975, tired, and met him in New York. He was tired too, still jaded from Stonewall and the rest, and through a mutual agreement neither ever voiced out loud, they disappeared into the forest. They’d settled in Oregon, listened to the coverage of the challenger crash on the ham radio Jesse’d made from spare parts he’d brought with him. Sombra had turned it off, settling back into the cushions on their couch, the one they’d bought at a yard sale in 1963 and had hauled with them everywhere. She looked up into the planks of their ceiling, snorting as she always did when she saw where Jesse’d fucked up and painted one plank a different shade of blue then the others. 

 

But after a moment, she collected her thoughts. 

 

“I’m gonna get the ink. Will you let me fix it?”

 

She didn’t need to elaborate. Jesse looked at the radio, and thought of the price he’d already paid, and the few people in the town they visited that were already starting to look at them funny. 

 

And then he just nodded.


	2. Parlor Tricks

When Jesse McCree met Hanzo Shimada, his first impression wasn’t so much a thought as a rush of attraction that nearly knocked him off his feet. So his first real thought was,  “Lord, I have never met a more obvious vampire.”

 

Not that Hanzo dressed like a gothic stereotype, far from it, but that umbrella was one of the ones Sombra sold out of the back room of her tattoo shop, and Hanzo hadn’t quite grasped that most vampires this century tried to darken their alabaster complexions with foundation. 

 

Plus, it was 10am and Professor Shimada looked positively  _ tuckered.  _ He looked like a man hours past his bedtime, and checked his watch like he had an important appointment to make. 

 

So it was no wonder that Jesse opened his mouth and immediately managed to make the worst impression of his life. 

 

“What're you doing out of your coffin at this hour?”

 

He'd realized a split second too late that he looked human on the outside, that most cryptids didn't care for company, and that Ana was in the doorway behind him. 

 

Hanzo Shimada puffed up like an angry turkey, which would have been funny if Jesse felt just a little less guilty. He spent a solid minute spluttering be for he managed “heading to the forest to find the wood for  _ yours _ !” and then stalked off. 

 

Jesse had every intention of apologizing the next time he saw him, honest, but Hanzo had evidently made up his mind to hate him by that point, and had a biting remark for him every time he saw him from then on after. 

 

“Missing your hat, cowboy?”

“Does your subject require you to hide in bushes so the birds can mistake your beard for a nesting place?”

“Don’t you have a shootout to attend to?”

 

Jesse never repeated the vampire comment, but he had to admit that the remarks started to grate on him after a while. Sombra thought it was hilarious. And maybe it wouldn’t have been so bad if Jesse could have just written Hanzo off, but he was  _ horribly  _ fond of the man. Disgustingly, in fact.

 

Environmental sciences and Mathematics didn’t have much in common, but space was at a premium, and Hanzo didn’t seem to be having much luck avoiding him. They were both in the staff lounge at odd hours, fighting over the dishwasher, and generally running into each other near constantly. 

 

Hanzo never seemed to question it, but Jesse and Sombra had discovered years ago that they never actually needed to sleep. And so Jesse was free to run into Hanzo all hours of the day and night. 

 

And there was the problem. 

 

Jesse ran into Hanzo in the mornings, hugging his umbrella to his chest and curled away from the windows, holding himself bolt upright as though he had to be ready to perform some responsibility at all times. Jesse ran into Hanzo in the evenings, when he was more alert, but in just as bad a mood as ever. And maybe Jesse would’ve written him off if things had kept on like that.

 

Jesse had just finished up another late lecture, shot Sombra his coming-home check in, and lit his cigar with his finger, when the voice came out of the dark.

 

“Practicing your parlor tricks, cowboy?”

Jesse nearly set his own sleeve on fire, but shook out his hands and turned into the dark. Hanzo sat on the step, in the barely-there light of the waning moon.

 

For a second, Jesse thought about just telling him. But they hardly knew each other, and it’d only been a few months since they met. Their lives were long, and months were nothing. Jesse faked a grin.

 

“Like to practice with my flash paper. Want one?” He offered Hanzo a cigar. Hanzo noted, mutely, and Jesse lit it-with his lighter, this time- and sat next to him on the steps. They sat in silence for a moment, and then the shadows shifted oddly around them. Jesse felt it, like the steps of a great creature in the dark. Hanzo kept looking off into the dark, and took another drag off of his cigar.

 

Jesse almost said something, but his phone let out a long trumpet blast, and he groaned. 

 

Hanzo raised an eyebrow at him, but he didn’t dignify it with a response as he picked up the phone.

“Sis-”

“Did you feel that?”

“Yeah.” Jesse bit his lip, thinking of what he could say, but Sombra cut back in, a smirk in her voice. 

“Are you with somebody right now? I know you could have taken the shadows home and been here by now-”   
“I have the right to remain silent.”

“Mhhmm. Is it that cute math professor? The one you called-”   
“I’m hanging up now.”

“Aw Jeeee-”

 

He hung up, and he looked up to apologize. 

 

He caught Hanzo’s eye and felt as though he’d been kicked in the chest. Hanzo was looking down at him, but he looked distant, and almost fond. He smiled, and the corners of his eyes crinkled, and McCree realized he’d never seen Hanzo smile before. 

 

“Siblings.”

 

McCree blinked, taking a moment to get of his own head and respond.

  
“Yeah. They’re a real riot. You got one?”

 

Even as he said it, he realized it was the wrong question. Hanzo had spoken with same fond exasperation Jesse felt every time he had to deal with Sombra. Hanzo took a drag on the cigarette to delay his answer, blowing smoke into the dark, and for a second the streetlight caught the curls of the smoke and lit it gold, like a dragon’s flame. 

 

“I had a brother. I....do not know where he is now. He had a knack for the short of trouble that tends to shorten life expectancy.”

 

McCree huffed out an almost-laugh, despite himself.

 

“I know that kind of trouble. Used to be in it.”

Hanzo’s smile was fading, but there was still that crinkle at the corner of his eye when he raised an eyebrow at McCree. 

“Well you seem to have come out of it alright.”

 

Jesse almost flinched, remembering the veil Sombra had woven around him. He had less experience with magic, couldn’t weave it like she could. She renewed the spell often, but he still had to wear gloves and long sleeves on the full moon. Here, in the light of his cigar, his arm would look like flesh- but all Jesse could see was metal twists and steel plating. He sighed. 

 

“Well, like Morrison always says. The visible scars aren’t the important ones.”

 

Hanzo snorted.

“I think perhaps he just wants the students to feel guilty for gawking.”

Jesse rolled his eyes, forgetting his worry in a familiar wave of dislike for Professor Jack Francis Morrison. 

“Fair enough. He’s an old drama queen, he loves it.”

Hanzo smiled, and Jesse felt a warmth in his chest that was more than just the cigar, and he forgot the shadows, forgot Morrison, and forgot his arm and the rest. There was just one thought left in his mind. 

 

_ Oh no. _


	3. Stop running sometime

Jesse had never been good at ignoring his feelings. In the old days, when his chest got tight and people looked at him the way he was sure he looked at Hanzo, he’d run rather than try to wait it out or face it. Better that hurt then the other kind. But he’d had the good sense never to fall for an immortal, and all the immortals he knew had the good sense not to fall for him. When he took a 20 year leave of absence and came back with a new costume they knew why. 

 

Only Genji had ever asked him about it. Apparently he’d tried to ask Som first, trying in his own way to be tactful, but apparently Sombra had laughed so hard she’d gone incorporeal and never come back, and so it was just the two of them, one night in California sometime before World War 2 (Genji had left America by then- you didn’t get to live that long without knowing which way the wind was blowing). They were playing Monopoly, which Sombra had stolen from some store that had just released them a month of so prior, and Jesse was filthy from his last run into the dust bowl. Genji had hardly seemed to notice, scowling at the game board a long time before he sighed and finally asked-

 

“Why do you go to such lengths to avoid mortal’s affections?”

 

Jesse, who’d fielded all sorts of inappropriate questions from Genji over the years, only choked on his drink a  _ little.  _

 

Clearing his throat, he managed- “I don’t-”

 

Genji glowered at him.    
“You are fooling no one. Especially since you have been wearing that bandana since you got back. You don’t need it, and what’s more, it’s hideous.”

 

“You’re wearing a white beret.” Jesse mumbled, tugging the edge of the bandana. 

Genji smirked, raising a silver-ringed hand to tip his beret a little further to the side.   
  
“I make this look good. Stop avoiding the question.”

 

McCree glared at him, but Genji just matched him with a dead stare of his own. His ice blue eyes cut into Jesse like the edge of a glacier shaping the landscape in its path, and the temperature of the room dropped 10 degrees. 

 

Jesse sighed, pulling the bandana back down around his throat.

“That’s cheatin’.” his breath puffed in the air, which was a feat considering he didn’t have much body heat himself. Genji smirked. 

 

“Got you anyway.” In his hands, he held twice the amount of monopoly money he had before. Jesse pretended not to notice, knowing if he called Genji on it Genji would just accuse him of stalling. And the worst part was, he’d be right. 

 

Jesse rolled the dice, trying to think of what to say. 

 

“They don’t live long enough to be wastin’ time with me.”

 

The dice came up snake-eyes, and if Genji’s eyes were a little bluer now then they were a minute ago, Jesse didn’t comment. He moved his tiny wheelbarrow along.

 

“I don’t believe they’d see it as a waste of time.” Genji’s tone was casual, but when he reached out to take the dice the glamour had faded from his hands, the scars on his joints and the bends where his fingers had been broken repeatedly and rehealed. He was missing his left pinky finger.

 

Jesse returned the favor, letting his glamor fade off him like the morning mist. He pulled the bandana off and rubbed the old banded scars on his neck.

 

“Nothing good comes of triflin’ in the lives of mortals.”

 

Genji didn’t call him on his hypocrisy- he had gone into the dust with them, he knew the difference between one life and a hundred. But he still scowled- the scars on his face distorting the expression somewhat. Usually, when he frowned, his glamour made him look like a petulant child. Jesse knew it was the face underneath those scars. The boy that had grown into the man with the broken hands.

 

“You don’t need to become involved. You could just...spend your nights somewhere more comfortable.”

 

McCree, in turn, didn’t call Genji on his own contradiction. He knew that for all his playboy airs Genji spent his nights alone. The curse of glamor was that you couldn’t fool your own eyes. Neither of them kept mirrors in the house. 

 

“Doesn't interest me.”

Genji smirked.

“Liar.”

McCree rolled the dice again. The snake eyes looked up at him, as though they were trying to tell him something. He huffed out a laugh.

 

“Maybe someday.”

 

Had to get sick of runnin’ sometime. 


	4. Marking the Occasion

One bright and sunny day in October, Sombra woke up Jesse up (as she usually did) by dropping something heavy on his knees. While that wasn’t  _ particularly  _ unusual, Jesse took a minute to prepare himself before he opened his eyes. The object wasn’t moving, so that was a good start. Not that he didn’t love their various pets, but the last time Sombra had dropped a raccoon on the bed it hadn’t gone well for either of them. (Him and the racoon, of course. Sombra had come out of it without so much of a hair out of place, and declared it worth replacing the window.)

 

Not an animal. And it kind of smelled like....

 

Jesse opened his eyes. Cake. It smelled like cake.

 

“Som.”

“Yeah?” She’d shadow-stepped to the top of his bookshelf, probably for no other reason then that she could. 

“Not sayin’ I don’t appreciate you makin’ cake. But would you mind tellin’ me why, exactly?”

“It’s your decade-a-versary. Happy ten years.”

Jesse sighed, sitting up in bed. The cake didn’t provide any answers. It just read “HAPPY 10 YEARS” on it. He tasted a bit of the frosting, experimentally, because he never could be sure that Sombra wasn’t testing her latest batch of potion on him. Just chocolate. 

 

He waited a minute before he broke, because as badly as he wanted to try to wait Sombra out, he knew she could wait much longer then he could. Forever, probably. 

 

“10 year anniversary of what, exactly? We’ve been in this town for ‘round 20. I’ve known you about a hundred or so.”

“Really known me a little under a hundred, yeah.” Sombra checked her (impeccable) nail polish. “You remember the night the tremors started?”

Jesse’s eyebrows furrowed as he tried to remember. There had been movements around them for a while now, practically every new moon. What had started as a prickle on the edge of his senses was getting to be a weight. But when had it-

 

He scowled.

 

“Som. Please tell me this cake is for our monster hunting and not anything to do with-”

“It’s the night you fell in love with Hanzo!”

Jesse let out a long groan and buried his face in his hands. “I am going to regret telling you his name until the day I die.”

 

Sombra grinned, kicking up her legs as she leapt off the bookshelf with a feline grace.

“Well, you won’t die, so I guess you’ll regret it forever. Now eat your cake, it’s relevant.”

“It’s what?”

 

She was gone under the door before he finished his sentence. He heaved a sigh. 

He took his cake with him as he followed the vague shape of Sombra's shadow downstairs, unsurprised when he opened the door to find her doing dishes as though she'd been there for hours. He took a bite and raised an eyebrow, hoping her desire to get her plan in action would overpower her need to screw with him. After about three minutes of silence (except for the clink of his fork against the plate and the low hum of the sink running) it did.

 

She ghosted to the table, because she never walked anywhere if she could help it, and propped her chin up on her hand.

"So. Your mathematician."

"Not my anything-"

She waved him off.

"We need his help."

 

Jesse paused, fork halfway to his mouth. Carefully, he put it down again, trying to gauge Sombra's expression. She was always happy to play a prank, but she didn't tend to mix work in with her sense of humor. And sure enough, she looked dead serious. She pulled the photos they'd taken in their scouting missions out of her back pocket and flipped them over on the table, tapping the coordinates she'd noted for each with her finger.

 

"There's gotta be a pattern in these."

"Don't you have one of those fancy computers that can do this stuff?" To say that Sombra had taken to the internet like a duck to water would be overstating the ducks. Sombra’s discovery that she no longer had to break into buildings and hide in filing cabinets to get corrupt company’s data had made her giddier than a kid on christmas.

 

Sombra waved him off with an air that convinced him simultaneously that she absolutely could, and she absolutely wouldn't (or wouldn’t admit that she couldn’t). He decided to try a different tactic.

"He doesn't know that I'm not human."

Sombra clicked her tongue.

"Ay, so what? He thinks you're a weird bird watcher anyway. Tell him you're tracking something and you don't know what it is."

Jesse frowned at the pictures. That was all true. And...

"...and we get to warn him about it without involving him too deeply, right?"   
  
Sombra winked at him, and he knew he had it. He huffed out a laugh.

"How many plans have you got riding on this, anyhow?"

"that's for me to know and you to neeevver find out."

 

Jesse took another bite of cake, chewing contemplatively.

"Yeah. Alright. I'll talk to him today."


	5. Tread Carefully

And maybe all would have gone according to plan, if it weren’t for Jack fucking Morrison. 

 

Jesse had the vague sense that Jack was somewhere beyond the pale- there was something weird about him that set Jesse’s teeth on edge, but he taught art and kept to himself and from the stories Jesse heard from the students the man was positively leaking post traumatic stress, so Jesse largely left him well alone. Cryptids kept to themselves, but so did crazy old art teachers with odd collections of pomegranate themed furniture. 

 

So he was even more surprised when he walked into Hanzo’s office and found Jack Morrison already there, arguing with him. 

“We cannot disregard seismic activity- I do not understand why you are being so insistent on this.”

“It’s just Mt. Hood. Locals are used to it by now.”

“If it is the volcano we have even more reason to be concerned-”   
“Aren’t you a math professor, Shimada? This is hardly your field-”

 

“But it’s mine.”

Jack and Hanzo both started, turning to Jesse as he spoke, and Jesse gave them a grin.

“I do believe environmental science is my field, unless i’m misrememberin’ terribly. Have you been taking over my classes, sir?”

Jack scowled, and for a second Jesse thought he saw gold in those crystal blue eyes, but it was gone again. The warm yellow of the lamp on Hanzo’s desk was the same color- must have been the reflection. Jack rubbed the bridge of his nose.

“Professor Shimada was trying to plan an expedition up the mountain. Surely, as this is your field, you can see how that might be unnecessarily dangerous.”

Jesse saw Hanzo bristle, and again dismissed all his considerations of Jack behind a cryptid. Nobody who knew would be stupid enough to question a vampire’s ability to defend himself. Yikes.

Jesse shrugged, trying not to show his thoughts on his face.

“Well there has been an increase in wildlife activity. Might be connected. I was actually just here to get your assistance, Professor Shimada. Maybe we can figure out the center of the activity that’s rilin’ the animals up.”

Jack raised an eyebrow, pinning Jesse in place with his eyes. Somehow, despite the iridescence of cataracts, his stare was crystal-focused.

“And you think it’s a good idea to be following animals around the woods when they’re upset from potential seismic activity?”

Jesse wanted to bare his teeth and growl, but forced a smile again.   
“The finer points of environmental observation might not have much to do with art, sir. Think maybe you should leave my field to me, if it’s all the same.”

Again, the sheen of gold. Cataracts. Jack surely had cataracts, his eyes were far more reflective than they should be. 

“You’re making some assumptions there, kid.”

Jesse feigned chastisement, tipping his hat.

“Sorry sir, I wasn’t aware if you had any experience in my field. I figured your degree must be in art, on account of your skill.”

 

Jack puffed up like a peacock, and behind him, Jesse caught Hanzo outright rolling his eyes and had to smother a grin.

 

“Well, yes, I have studied art for a long time. But I’m largely self taught. My original degree was in agriculture, I have a masters in-”

McCree tuned him out, nodding along, and managed to keep the appearance of listening while he slowly moved across the room and slid Hanzo the envelope of blurry photos and coordinates across the desk. 

 

“-and kids these days think they can do just their classwork and become great artists. It takes much more dedication then that!”

“I’m sure it does, sir.”

 

Hanzo was typing furiously, and Jack’s expression clouded like a storm rolling in. 

 

“You kids better not go up on that mountain.”

Jesse held his hands behind him, fingerspelling “W-A-I-T” and hoping that ASL was one of Hanzo’s languages (had to pick up a lot of languages in a life that long) Hanzo’s hands stilled.

“No sir.” Jesse tipped his hat, but Jack’s eyes didn’t focus on him. He almost looked further away, a little wistful for a moment, but then he steeled himself. 

 

“Then I’ll leave you two to your discussion.”

 

He left, and Jesse huffed.

 

“Christ, that man’s like a bulldog. He just don’t let go.”

Hanzo, shrugged, though his expression said he was holding onto something considerably less charitable. He took a moment to swallow those sentiments, and went back to typing. 

 

After a long moment, his hands stilled, and he gave the mouse a resolute click before he sat back down at his desk.

 

“He is rather presumptuous. We are hardly his students. Or ‘kids’, for that matter.”

McCree laughed.

“I’ll say.”

Truer than Hanzo knew, in fact. For a brief moment, McCree’s chest got tight. He wanted to be able to ask how long Hanzo had lived, the things he’d seen, and again, he wavered. But owning up to it meant admitting everything he knew about the thing out in the dark, and that meant Hanzo getting into the fight. And, though Jesse knew he could handle himself...

 

He sighed. Chivalry. Being protective. It was going to get him killed. 

 

He came back to himself, turning to Hanzo, who was glaring at his computer as though it had personally offended him. McCree smothered a smile. He was cute when he scowled.

 

“Somethin’ wrong?”

“After a fashion.” Hanzo tapped the end of his pen on the screen, his frown getting milder. 

“Or right, I suppose. These coordinates match my measurements of seismic activity, which is strange, since....” He looked at the picture, and Jesse could see the moment he realized what he was looking at. He glanced up at Jesse, cautious.

“I could be mistaken. But perhaps Professor Morrison is right that this is dangerous.”

Jesse shrugged, playing the ignorant cowboy.

“Shucks, it’s nothin’. I’ve got my rifle. But i’ll keep back a ways. Usually the photos are from my sister’s drones and camera plants anyway.”

 

Hanzo raised his eyebrows, not bothering to try to disguise his surprise, his suspicion gone.

“Your sister is very impressive. These photos are fairly clear for being from drones.”

Jesse grinned.

“Well i’ll tell her, but I don’t know ‘bout that. They’re pretty dark.”

Hanzo hummed, and if Jesse hadn’t known that Hanzo was more then he seemed, he would have been fooled.

“Could be black wolves. The darkness is quite...concentrated.”

Jesse couldn’t quite suppress a huff of a laugh, but disguised it with a cough.

“Yeah. Wolves. Anyway, I’d better get on home.”

 

Hanzo’s expression softened a bit, and didn’t that just make McCree’s heart go pitter-patter. 

“Be careful.”

McCree tipped his hat, grinning. 

 

“Always am.”

 

They both knew it was a lie. 


	6. Watch your step

Sombra’s pictures were not, in fact, from her drones.

 

Not because her drones were sub-par, or couldn’t get photos of the same quality, but because the thing kept  _ eating  _ the drones. 

 

It was especially odd because the creature didn’t seem particularly hostile, it was huge, and moved like a particularly lazy a herbivorous dinosaur- if dinosaurs were nearly incorporeal except for the shake in the earth when they moved and made of pure darkness. But every time a drone flew near it a tendril of darkness grabbed it and pulled it into the center of its form, and Sombra just kept finding tiny bits of metal without their circuitry the next morning, and honestly, it was getting on her nerves. 

 

They could only see it for a moment- when a tendril came down through the canopy of trees as though it weren’t there and hit the earth with a rumble like an avalanche, Sombra in the air and Jesse on the ground could see, for a moment....something. Something there and then gone. There was a split second when Jesse thought he recognized its shape, but then it was gone again and the impressions bled out of his memory.    
  


It was infuriating- all the more so because it was  _ so damn familiar.  _ Something about the feeling of a there-and-gone-again knowing. Something long forgotten, always right on the edge of his mind. 

 

It was driving him crazy, and so maybe he wasn’t thinking straight when he went into the woods after he’d told Hanzo about the tremors. He’d changed his serape- leaving behind the one with Sombra’s glamour spell worn into it’s threads- and gone into the night with his bandana for coverage. Sombra had smirked at him- her eyes glowed faintly in the dark, under her hood. 

 

“Sure you wanna wear that awful bandana? I thought I burned that thing.  _ Esta pero bien feo. _ ”

McCree snorted.   
  
“Better to be safe than sorry. Morrison’s asking questions.”

Sombra laughed.

“What, that art teacher? You scared of old vets now?”

 

McCree just grunted. He was more then a bit out of it- looking into the sky and seeing the shape flickering in and out of shadow. 

 

And that’s probably why, hours later, he didn’t notice the person tailing them until it was too late. 


	7. On The Wing

Jesse had learned, the hard way in many cases, that it was very rare that Sombra wasn’t in complete control of a situation. Still, he supposed it was nice to know that she could still  _ royally fuck it up _ sometimes. 

 

Maybe this one was on him, he mused, oddly calm as he sprinted full-tilt through the woods. He knew Hanzo better then she did. He should have known that the mathematics professor would head into the woods  _ immediately  _ after being told not to. Especially since it was the new moon. 

 

Sombra. Right. Where was Sombra? He hadn’t seen the flash of her tattoos in a while. She’d probably succeeded in warping into the shadows before Hanzo broke out the high beam lamp. That man was a little too prepared. Som owed him so bad for this one. 

 

The cliff was coming up- he could feel the shadows in its depths. He just had to reach the edge, jump, and hope to hell Hanzo didn’t point the flashlight right down the gully or he was going to have to do something  _ drastic.  _

And that was about when the arrow hit him in the knee. 

 

He went down hard, skidding almost to the edge of the cliff, but Hanzo was on him before he could go for it, a knee in his back, the point of an arrow against the back of his neck.

 

McCree had to laugh, and that, of all things, caused Hanzo to hesitate. The arrow withdrew a bit, and Jesse let out a tiny manic giggle. Nowhere to go now. He was corporeal in light this bright, without options or escapes. He was pretty sure he couldn’t  _ die,  _ but this was gonna hurt. 

 

Only the pain didn’t come, and after a few seconds of silence Hanzo’s knee lifted, slightly, cautiously. 

 

“One wrong move, and you are already dead. Roll over.”

 

Jesse choked on another laugh. No glamour this time. He rolled over, hands up. 

 

“Now now, I think you’ve got me all wrong.”

 

McCree’s chest twisted. He knew how he looked. He knew it wasn’t pretty. Especially not to a man like Hanzo- who was resplendent in a traditional archer’s garb of red and black silk, half his chest bared, red dragons twisting around his arms. But Hanzo’s glare was steady, betraying nothing. 

 

“Remove the bandana.” 

McCree grimaced, trying not to let the gesture reach his eyes. 

“Not sure you wanna see what’s under there, darlin’.”

 

Hanzo raised an eyebrow, and for a moment McCree could have sworn he saw him smile. 

 

“Since we are evidently on such familiar terms, I must insist.”

 

_ Do it, vaquero.  _

 

McCree  _ almost  _ flinched. He’d missed the snaking sensation of shadows curling at the back of his neck. He knew if he looked down he’d see his shadow stretching, expanding to reach the edge of the floodlight. Sombra. Damn her. 

 

_ Be nice. I have to be in your head for a bit.  _

 

_ Don’t like it when you do this.  _

 

_ Bear it a moment longer. Take it off. He’s waiting for you.  _

Jesse cursed internally, but she was right, Hanzo was looking at him expectantly. He wished, for a single mad moment, that he hadn’t had the safety precaution of wearing his goddamn hat. It was too easy for Sombra to get a foothold in the shadows of the brim. 

 

_ You’d be dead so many times over- _

 

_ Shut up a minute. _

 

Jesse took a deep breath and unknotted the bandana. No use hiding the worst of it. As he’d expected, Hanzo recoiled, and Jesse tipped his head and grinned, pulling tight the scar on his cheek and bearing the mark gouged into his neck. 

 

“Not what you were expecting?”

 

But Hanzo wasn’t looking at his neck. He was looking at his face, and with his stomach dropping, Jesse realized he knew the look in his eyes.

 

Hanzo started to speak, his bow dropping, the same moment Jesse felt his shadow connect to the cliff. 

 

“Jesse?”

 

Jesse didn’t get the chance to try to explain before Sombra made her move. 

 

The lamp at Hanzo’s feet shattered in a flash of flame that lit his features in tiger-stripes of orange, his eyes still up as Jesse stepped back. 

 

“-Wait-!”

 

_ You need to move, now! _

 

“I’m sorry.” Jesse breathed, and then he let himself fall into the cradle of darkness in the cliff, dissolving a moment into the fall and taking wing. 


	8. Scars (that are more then skin deep)

If someone had asked Jesse how he got those scars, he would have said “nice batman reference” and then fled before he had to answer the question. He thanked the modern era for providing him with that escape, because it had been much harder when Genji’d asked, years ago. 

 

They’d been playing Monopoly again, only Sombra was there this time, and Genji was in such a heavy glamour that no one could even get a read on his gender, let alone his race. They were in London, taking a rare reprieve before they headed back to the front lines. If they hadn’t been in a bunker, it could have been a normal day. 

 

Sombra was whistling to herself, the tune only getting slightly strained when Genji’d asked the question, the pile of money in front of her steadily growing. McCree had wished, irrationally, that he’d never dropped his glamour. But that would be rude. 

 

Jesse hadn’t answered right away, taking a moment to look to Sombra and waiting for her almost imperceptible nod of approval before he spoke. 

 

“Same way you got yours.”

 

Genji’d frozen, the dice falling from his hands. Sombra had moved his piece for him while he processed, taking the money he owed her from his stack. 

 

Genji looked at her, to Jesse, and back again. 

 

“...You never mentioned having any other siblings.” He managed.

  
“I don’t.”

 

Jesse took the dice from Sombra and threw them, his hands steady. 

  
“We didn’t always get along quite this well.”

__

 

In fact, at one point, they’d gotten on  _ rather badly.  _ There was a precedent for that day in the speakeasy. Sombra was, by her own admission, rather older than Jesse- and in her time immortals were....rather territorial. And so were gangs. So when she found out that her rival gang was running with another immortal....well. She’d taken steps.

  
___

 

“In my defense.” Sombra mused, taking more money from Jesse’s hand, “I didn’t know, at the time, that we had the same father.”

 

In response to Jesse’s raised eyebrow, she scowled. “-and it’s not really any excuse- especially since you were practically a  _ baby. _ ”

 

Jesse glowered.

“I resent that-”

“How old was he?” Genji asked, tossing the dice and handing Sombra more money.

“30.”

“35!”

Genji forced a grin, but it didn’t reach his eyes- didn’t tug the scars at the corners of them the way it did when he laughed.

“Either way. That is very young.”

___

 

The gangs had been fighting for months- the town they’d been warring was practically empty by this point, the sheriff long dead. His body lay on the side of the road coming into town, a casual warning. It didn’t sit right with Jesse, and he’d been thinking of running, but it wouldn’t save him from Los Muertos. He was going to stand against them- regardless of who he was standing with. The Deadlocks weren’t much better, but they lacked the power Los Muertos brought with them. The Deadlocks didn’t hold up trains and kill convoys- largely because they  _ couldn’t, _ but Jesse didn’t like to focus on that part. 

 

It was hard to move around the town anymore, and he’d been caught out at night- thinking, foolishly, that no one could see in the dark as well as he could. It was the new moon, and the desert was the deepest shade of black he knew. He moved through the starlight as easily as through the day, but he didn’t see the rope until it was around his neck.

__

 

Jesse cut off, rubbing the scars and breathing deep to remind himself he still could. Sombra’s expression was a stony mask as she tossed the dice. Genji let out a strained little laugh- mildly hysterical. 

 

“So she just hung you? Surely you could cut yourself down-”

 

“He didn’t have any magic.” Sombra looked casual, checking the tile she was on and passing Jesse some money. 

“And I didn’t hang him. We dragged him behind my horse out into the desert and then let the horse free.” She chuckled, but it was a terrible facsimile of a laugh. 

 

“And the horse saw ghosts in the shadows and the heat waves. It’s a finely crafted spell, although I don’t use it anymore.”

  
Neither of them had to ask why. Genji finally cracked, open horror in his expression. 

  
“And you forgave her? I- I understand bringing down your rivals, but that’s- you knew he couldn’t defend himself or-”

 

Jesse took the dice from Genji, passing them into Sombra’s still hands. 

 

He tried to sound casual.   
“Can’t say I wasn’t bitter about it, because getting dragged around the desert by the neck for three days till the horse finally died was no picnic. But I ain’t built for grudges.”

 

Sombra finally smiled, albeit a little stiffly, throwing the dice. 

 

“The very next time he saw me he tried to come over and talk.”

“And then she shot me.”

 

Sombra scoffed, moving her piece and tossing Genji a few dollars.

“Please. I bet that didn’t even hurt.”

“Those old pistols were huge! I had to get a fuckin’ witch doctor to stuff the hole you left in my chest.”

Sombra waved him off.

“You got me with a  _ canon.  _ Last  _ week. _ ”

“That was an accident! How was I supposed to know you’d be corporeal behind enemy lines-”

 

Genji shook his head in wonderment. 

“I cannot understand how you two can forgive so easily. I have not seen my brother since...” He gestured to himself, his expression sour.

“Since.” he said, with finality. 

 

Jesse tipped his hat, smiling a little more easily.

“Well. Can’t speak for pacin’. But we live a long long time. I find it’s easier with company.”

 

He didn’t say that family wins out. That it counts for far more when you’re looking forward at forever. As many times as Sombra had betrayed him, and he was still sore about that bar, those wounds had healed, and she’d stand with him in as many wars as the world had coming. 

 

Genji looked thoughtful,but he said no more on the subject and tossed the rest of his cash at Sombra.

  
“Well, that’s game for me. Back to the battle?”

 

“But I haven’t-” Jesse looked at his dice roll, counted the spaces, and then sighed- tossing the rest of his money down. 

 

“Alright then. Forward we march.”


	9. Making friends

It took a week for Sombra to convince Jesse to go back to school, and even then it wasn’t really her influence, but Jack calling him up and politely calling his bluff by saying that he really ought to check himself into a hospital if he was sick for much longer. 

 

Jesse grumbled as he hung up, and got up to head to work. 

 

To his great chagrin (and begrudging admiration) Jack was, in fact, teaching his class when he got there. He lingered in the doorway, watching the old man scrawl lines of equations on the board and effortlessly break them down into manageable rules for determining species density. When one of his smartass kids raised his hand and asked how you use mark-and-recapture tactics on larger species, like bears, Jack raised a white eyebrow. 

 

“What, never wrestled a bear before?”

He said it so effortlessly that the class went to dead quiet for a minute, and then Jack grinned. For a moment, Jesse saw the lightless of a much younger man. There was a genuine joy in those features- usually, when Jack smiled at meetings, Jesse got an impression closer to a wolf baring its teeth. 

 

“Well, if you lack the stamina for that, sometimes you can set up barbed-wire to catch a little bit of their hair and then use DNA testing to identify when the same individual turns up again.”

 

“You say that like you’ve wrestled a bear before.” 

 

Jesse nearly facepalmed. Same goddamn smartass student-

 

“How do you think I got these scars?” 

 

Jesse flinched involuntarily, and a giggle went through the room. As Jack went back to his lecture Jesse tipped his head, hissing a spell out into the air and bringing the energies of the room to his eyes.

 

Jack was still smiling, and he shone like the sun. For a moment, Jesse swore he saw Jack as he must have been once- blonde and blue-eyed, muscled and wreathed in-

 

Flowers?

 

Jesse blinked, and the images faded, but it was still on the edge of his consciousness. That was...strange. It was like a psychic imprint in the space Jack occupied, an echo of something that still sang. It...

 

He focused again. It was slipping away from him, as though his sight couldn’t reach across the room. It whited out on the edges of his vision, cold like moonlight and falling snow. Jack, even his physical form across the room, was a blur. A human-shaped blur, but-

 

“How long are you gonna stand there, Mr. McCree?”

Another laugh went through the room, and as Jesse blinked the light out of his eyes he realized that Jack was looking right at him, an eyebrow raised. He smiled, a reaction more than a feeling, and stepped through the doorway. 

 

“Seems I owe you an apology, Mr. Morrison. You don’t seem to have any trouble teachin’ my subject.”

 

“He’s a better teacher than you!” yelled his smartass student. Jesse snorted, but to his surprise, Jack turned on them and grinned in a decidedly unfriendly way.   
  
“I’m glad you think so, Hunter. You should consider registering for some of my art classes in the spring.” 

 

Hunter quavered under the crystal sharpness of Jack’s stare. 

 

“I will, sir.” he managed.

  
“Look forward to seeing you. Alright well, tragically, it seems to be the end of the period, so I suppose you’ve missed Mr. McCree. Unless you have any homework to give them?” Jack directed the last part to Jesse, who grinned at the chorus of groans.

  
“Nah, they’re gettin’ off lucky this time. Hope they’re keeping up with the syllabus reading though. Might have to drop a pop quiz and see how well Mr. Morrison’s been teachin’ you. Off you go now.”

 

They filed out of the room, still grumbling, and Jack waited till they were gone before he turned to Jesse. 

 

“Do you have any plans for Thanksgiving dinner?”

 

Jesse blinked, taken off guard. Jack’s tone was normal- which was to say, gruff and sharp as a drill sergeant, but it lacked the hostility with which he usually addressed....everyone. 

 

“No sir.”

 

Jack nodded mechanically, gathering up his things. His gaze was distant, and he looked for all the world like a blind man as he ran his palms along the desk to locate his papers.

 

“Well. You and Mr. Shimada are invited to join me. We should share data on the seismic anomalies and I....” his face twisted, as though he tasted something sour, and he frowned down at the pomegranate he’d just picked up off the desk. 

“I would appreciate the company.” He said finally. 

 

“Sure.” Jesse managed. He wasn’t sure what else he could say. Jack seemed satisfied with that, and left the room without another word. 

 

Jesse stared after him, and for a moment he forgot all about his concerns about the night in the woods, and about Hanzo.

 

“What the fuck?”


	10. Making Enemies

Jesse had made a fine tradition of immediately angering everyone he’d ever met, and Jack Morrison was no exception. They’d shaken hands, and it had all gone downhill from there. 

 

“Funny, I recall us hiring a new science professor, not a rancher.”

“I know you grew up in a different time,” Jesse shot back, “But nowadays we don’t judge people’s intelligence based on their clothin’.”

 

“Well I wouldn’t have to base it on your clothing. I could also base it on your manners.”

“Seems to me your manners ain’t so good either,  _ sir. _ ”

“You punk-”

 

And then Ana had separated them. Bodily. 

 

But the years wore on, and Jesse knew full well he was no good at holding grudges. So, under the apparently false impression that Jack was gonna die of old age at some point soon, Jesse had gone to Jack’s birthday party, about 5 years into his tenure at the university. 

 

No one but Jack had seemed surprised to see him there, and even the old cuss had waited until the singing was over and the cake was handed out to corner him. 

  
“What’re you doing here, kid.” His attempt at intimidation was lessened slightly by the bright blue and yellow birthday hat on his head, and he’d looked frail then- too thin, with age spots on the backs of his hands. Later, Jesse suspected he’d been ill. On the day of that party he didn’t look a man who’d be hale and healthy in another 15 years. 

 

Jesse tried to play it off.

  
“Just here for the cake.” He took a bite, trying to sell it, but couldn’t quite suppress the expression on his face. It was not good cake. 

 

Jack just raised an eyebrow and waited, and finally, Jesse caved.

  
“Fine I...I got you something.”

 

Jack looked genuinely thrown off by that, and Jesse quickly held out the bag before the silence could stretch on for too much longer. Jack took it, looked inside, and froze.

 

Jesse panicked a bit.   
  
“I reckon it’s a bit impractical, but I know you like pomegranates, so-”

Ana moved over, seemingly drawn to the awkwardness like a shark to blood.

 

“Oh he got you a gift? What did he-” She cut herself off, staring into the bag, and the silence stretched on long enough for Jesse to break into a cold sweat, and then she wheezed. 

  
“Oh it’s perfect! Thank the poor boy, he’s fretting.”

“I was not-”   
  
“Thanks.” Jack cut him off, still looking intensely into the box. With a slow and careful reverence, he pulled out the pomegranate-shaped teapot. 

 

It was the first time Jesse had seen Jack Morrison smile, and Jesse thought for years it would be the last.

 

Ever since then they’d been able to stand each other, but they were hardly on good terms, and neither of them had much intention of changing it.

 

But, Jesse supposed everything changed eventually. No chain held forever. Still, dinner with Jack Morrison and Hanzo was bound to be eventful and-

 

Hanzo.

 

Oh no. 


	11. The whole truth

When Sombra asked, later, how it went, McCree left out the part where he tried to climb out the window so he could hide in the bushes between classes. It was a brilliantly sunny day, and there were no shadows in the brick he could hold on to, but he was sure that the broken leg would heal up nicely. And as such, Hanzo walked in on him with one leg out the window, his torso still in the room. 

 

They stared at each other for a moment, McCree mentally computing the likelihood that Hanzo would yell after him if he jumped and draw attention to them. His musing was interrupted by Hanzo, finally finding his voice. 

 

“I have no doubt you could survive that fall without difficulty, but would you mind...?”

 

“Jack wants us to come over for Thanksgiving dinner.” Jesse heard himself say. 

 

Hanzo’s eyebrows slowly pulled together, and Jesse tried to suppress the intensifying urge to make the jump while he distracted. 

 

“What?” Hanzo managed.

  
“Thanksgiving. In the US we-”

  
“I know.”

  
Hanzo smiled, and Jesse’s heart gave a painful thud.

“I have lived in your country a long time. I am aware. I am concerned about his motivations, and also about yours.”

  
“Mine?”   
  
“You are stalling.”

 

Jesse grinned, tipping his hat.

 

“Stalling? Don’t know the meaning of the word. You’ll have to explain it to me. In detail. Slowly.”

  
Hanzo rolled his eyes, and it was clear that he’d seen plenty of this tactic before. That brother of his, Jesse supposed. He must have been a lot like Genji. He should introduce them. It would probably go terribly. 

 

He pulled his leg back into the room, settling on the ledge as though he were only appreciating the weather. After a moment, Hanzo crossed the room and settled at the desk nearest the window. He crossed his hands and looked to Jesse expectantly. 

 

For a moment, Jesse considered if this is what a rabbit felt like when he saw the cougar’s eyes in the brush. He hadn’t felt like this since the last time he had a shootoff with Sombra, back in the deadlock days. Like if he made the wrong move he’d die. 

 

It was kind of refreshing. 

 

“So.” McCree led, good naturedly. 

 

“I suppose I can finally apologize for my first impression.”

 

The corner of Hanzo’s mouth twitched, as though he were holding back a smile. 

 

“I hope you are aware that vampires do not, in fact, sleep in coffins.”

 

McCree chucked, lighting a cigar and pushing the window up the rest of the way so he could blow the smoke out the window. 

 

“I know. I’ve run with a few. I thought i was bein’ clever, i’m afraid.”

 

“You thought that was clever?”

 

McCree guffawed, grinning at Hanzo through the haze of the cigar smoke. The room was warm and a bit musty- the heaters just kicking in for the fall. The breeze coming in the window chilled him just enough to be perfectly pleasant, and with Hanzo lounging at one of the desks in his suit, his chin propped in his hand, the tense atmosphere had diffused like the heat out the window. 

 

So there wasn’t gonna be a better time to tell him the truth. 

 

He pulled off his hat, almost feeling the glamor Sombra had worn into it pulling off his skin. 

Hanzo didn’t gasp, but out of the corner of his eye McCree could see him tense.

 

Jesse blew more smoke out the window, and then set down his cigar to pull up his silver hair. 

 

When Hanzo spoke, it was soft, and McCree hardly heard it.

 

“I thought your eyes were green.”

 

McCree huffed out a laugh, turning to him. 

 

“Yeah, they do that at night. Gets a bit creepy. I also get a mite dark- my Sister’s checked, we’re kind of transparent against the trees. Pale on nights the moon’s out, although we don’t do that much.”

 

Hanzo was already relaxing, and McCree’s heart let out a little pang, so he forced himself to keep speaking.

 

“It’s not as bad as all that. These days I look a bit like an old fart without the glamour, which wouldn’t be much of a problem, cept for...”

 

McCree gestured to his neck, and sent up a prayer that Hanzo wouldn’t ask- because if he did, Jesse’d tell him the whole truth, and that wasn’t safe for either of them.

 

Ashe finding him in the desert, storming off into the sands. 

 

Someday he’d have to ask Sombra if she’d really killed her. He feared the answer. 

 

When he looked up at Hanzo the man’s expression was soft, and his heart gave a thud. His prayer hadn’t been answered, but somehow he didn’t mind. 

  
“You don’t have to tell me the story, but I would...like to hear it. If you are comfortable telling it.”


	12. of Guns and Gods

The first time McCree had met Sombra, he’d tried to flirt with her, and she’d shot him. She hadn’t looked particularly angry, just a bit bored, as she leaned against the pillar outside the tavern and watched Jesse fall to his knees, clutching his chest. She’d clucked her tongue, tucking her pistol back into her belt and reaching into her bag.

 

“Relax. It wasn’t silver. Don’t be such a baby. I’m just here to deliver a message.” She’d stepped forward, primly lifting her skirt away from the mud of the street as she crossed to Jesse and pressed the cold barrel of a shotgun to his head.

 

“Deadlock needs to get out of town.  _ Los muertos vienen por este pueblo. _ ”

 

She’d pulled the trigger, watching Jesse flinch as the bullet didn’t come, and then rolled it back onto her shoulder.

 

“Next time it’ll be loaded. Tell Calamity I said hello, won’t you?  _ Adiós. _ ”

 

She’d walked a few steps away, and then turned, her finger on her lip.

 

“Oh, one last thing,  _ lo siento.  _ Tell the vamp that the moon will rise, no matter what she does.”

 

__

 

Ashe had been  _ furious.  _

 

McCree had still been reeling, because he’d just been  _ shot _ and it was already healing, Ashe had pulled the bullet out and the wound had started to seal the minute it was withdrawn. ( _ Silver _ , Ashe had spat, and Jesse almost laughed.)

 

She was pacing, leaving a line in the dust, muttering about moonrise and spitting out words in a language McCree didn’t speak, had never even heard- and he choked out-

 

“She called you...vamp? She was talkin’ about...Ashe, what was she..?”

 

“Don’t worry about it.” Ashe had smiled at him, and for a moment it had even been convincing. She’d patted his hair absent-mindedly.

 

“I’ve got this under control.”

 

She hadn’t.

 

And when she found Jesse in the desert, choking on the air, she’d bent beside him and placed her hands on his neck, mumbling something that made the air go easier, something that felt warm, and wrapped him in his serape- he’d left it at headquarters.

 

She told him she’d be back.

  
She wasn’t. 

 

And Jesse wasn’t proud, but after he’d waited two days in the desert- sitting and wondering why he didn’t feel hungry anymore, why he didn’t need to breathe- he left. He got up, and walked into the desert after the trains, and left Deadlock behind him. 

 

**______**

 

McCree took an absent minded puff from his cigar, putting his hat back on. 

 

“Don’t know how it is for vampires, but for my kind we need...well, frankly, we’re kinda like phoenixes. We need to suffer a fatal injury to get our full abilities. ‘Course it becomes kind of a problem, because a lot of us don’t know what we are, and you don’t just wanna go gettin’ yourself killed in the hopes you’ll be reborn as somethin’ else.”

 

Hanzo has the visage of a stormcloud, intense, disturbed like the air.

  
“We are born with our abilities. I had heard tell of members of our species who were killed and came back more powerful, but as you say, it is more likely to simply die.”

 

McCree took another deep drag of his cigar.

 

“Yeah, that tracks. There are more of us then you might think, but most don’t know. Cryptids are damn hard to kill anyway, and you gotta sustain an injury that would really be fatal.”   
  


“What...” Hanzo collected himself, sitting back in his chair.

“...what is your parentage?”

 

McCree smiled, thinking of the parallels. The first time he’d asked Sombra that question. 

 

He tipped his hat.

 

“Well, I don’t know much, but I think you’d call me a demigod?”


	13. Liar Liar

 

“Well, I think that went we-”

 

Jesse stopped in the doorway to Sombra’s tattoo shop. She was with a customer, but that hadn’t been what stopped him. 

 

It was the sight of  _ Jack fucking Morrison  _ on shirtless Sombra’s workbench, sitting up and bent forward so she could work on his shoulder blades. It took Sombra a moment to notice his silence, wrapped up in whatever she was doing on his shoulder blades, and in those seconds before she looked up Jesse took in the sight of Jack Morrison’s  _ sleeve tattoos.  _

 

They were tree branches- and Jesse wondered how he’d never seen them before. But no, he’d just assumed that Jack was a prude who wore sweater-vests in July. The limbs of a great tree curled down his arms, all coming from a knot above his heart. The leaves were bright yellow and green- perfectly matched to the ones outside this time of year. And, Jesse dimly realized, there were pomegranates hanging off the branch. There was another one at the center of the design over Jack’s chest- split in half with the branches curled around it like a cage. As he looked, Jesse thought he saw the leaves move-

 

“You make up with your man?” 

 

Sombra’s voice broke him out his his trance, and he scowled up at Sombra.

 

“He is not-”

 

“He isn’t?” Jack’s voice took both of them by surprise, and he raised an eyebrow at Jesse, smiling. 

“In that case Ana owes me money.”

 

Sombra frowned, looking back to the work she was doing on Jack’s back.

  
“You two know each other?”

“Coworkers.” Jack supplied, his voice calm. “I subbed for his class the week he was sick.”

 

Sombra grinned at Jesse, understanding. 

 

“He did mention how grateful he was.”

  
“I’m sure.”

 

Jesse was reeling a bit. Jack was being...affable. Friendly, even. Just communicating like a normal human being. He’d thought Jack’s two moods were “grouchy” and “furious.”

 

“Well.” Jack broke Jesse’s daze, but he wasn’t really looking at him. Just blankly off into the air, like a blind man. 

 

“Since we’ve run into each other, I did want to ask you for a favor.”   
  


“Yeah?” Jesse leaned on the doorframe, trying not to scowl. 

  
“I’m afraid i’m not legally allowed to drive, and I’ve run out of wine for Thanksgiving dinner. Would you mind running by the winery on the edge of town? I have their business card, and they’ve already got my order.” 

 

“...sure.”

 

Jesse almost asked why he didn’t just walk to town, but Jack did seem like the type to have expensive taste, and he didn’t really mind the errand.

 

“Not legally allowed to drive?” Sombra asked, adjusting a magnifying lens over her eye. Jack smiled.

 

“Legally blind.”

 

Sombra whistled.

  
“You made your way in here pretty easy,  _ hombre _ .”

 

“I can make out shapes and shadows.” Jack supplied, and Jesse was suddenly struck by the memory of Jack writing on his whiteboard with ease, of his neat script on the papers at his desk.

 

He was lying. Despite his cataracts he was-

 

Was he?

 

McCree frowned, unsure. Ana never gave him handouts at meeting. The whiteboard was white on black, and bold enough that maybe...but...his papers.

 

And the crystal-point accuracy of his stare. 

 

McCree kept his suspicions to himself. 

 

“Yeah I can do that. What’s the name of the winery?”

 

“It’s Viper. Viper winery.”

 

Sombra’s hands stopped moving, and something flared at the edge of McCree’s memory. He couldn’t quite put his finger on it. What had that name referred to?

 

“Funny name.” Sombra’s voice was carefully controlled, and she was keeping her eyes on the tattoo. She was very carefully not looking up at Jesse, and that certainly didn’t bode well. 

 

If Jack noticed the tense silence, he didn’t let on. 

 

“Nowhere else has pomegranate wine around here, especially not in this season. They’ve got a greenhouse, and usually if I can get a ride it’s nice to wander around in- for the smell, of course. And the warmth is good for my old joints.”

 

The clarification sounded a bit forced, and Jesse narrowed his eyes at him.

 

_ Liar liar.  _

 

Sombra shot him a sharp look over the lenses of her glasses, and if he were in less of a sour mood it would have made him laugh. Her eyes were big and round in the magnifying lenses. He huffed, forcing out-

 

“What’s the address?”


	14. Sense of Place

It took years, and far too many years, for McCree to realize that the Deadlock Gang was not made for humans.

 

Sure, he’d thought it a mite strange that a blonde and red-eyed lady had come to bail him out of lock up and ask him to found a gang with her. He’d laughed at her, and she’d dropped more money in his lap then he’d ever seen in his short life, and he stopped laughing. 

 

She couldn’t shoot, seemed amused by his gun and the bullets in it, but learned anyway, and learned fast. 

 

And sure, he’d thought that strange too. It took a week and Ashe shot straight and hit all her targets, and in another week she could do it with a shotgun, and in another she could shoot a fly from a rooftop on the other side of town, given the right gun. McCree wasn’t sure if he was proud of her or a mite scared. 

 

She had no history, but was far too interested in his, and he was careful not to tell her about the days he found himself in the tavern alone, and when she found him there, she didn’t ask. 

  
And that was the thing- no matter how suspicious he acted, how many things he didn’t tell her despite all her questions, she seemed to trust him. And it was to his surprise that he found he trusted her too. 

 

So when he woke up with a tattoo burned into his skin, he finally fessed up, and his world got a lot bigger. 

 

___

 

Ashe had dipped her hands in a poultice they’d been using to treat their gunpowder burns, and started tracing. It took her a long time to find the words, and McCree was trying to parse it all.  _ Magicmagicmagicdeathfathersonhandsrivals- _

Things had been happening. Ashe wasn’t getting any older, was only shooting faster, couldn’t go out in the daylight, and Los Muertos had been turning up around town and tracing patterns in the walls that made Ashe furious and she had to pay other people to destroy. He knew. He knew his mother’s stories had a ring of truth, that there were things in the desert that they didn’t talk about. It was just- here. Close. His family, himself. 

 

Ashe finally spoke.

 

“I can’t tell anymore.”

 

He didn’t say anything, but the shift of his shoulders must have been all the question she needed. 

 

“You’ve always been there, Jess. Like a blot on the edge of my eyes, I can always tell that there’s something there under your skin. Somethin’ more. But right now, you look just human. I can...”

 

Her hands warmed on his back, and he forced himself to breathe deep, not to panic, because there’s a feeling of static and heat and she’s pushing it against his skin. 

 

“I can feel this. This seal, when I’ve got my hands on it, blocking my power and yours.”

  
“I don’t have any powers.” He didn’t believe it, even as he say it, and he almost whispered. Ashe hated liars. She smacked his shoulder, but it was light. 

 

“Maybe you just didn’t know how to use ‘em. And I’m....sorry. For that.”

 

That caught Jesse’s attention, and he tried to turn around, only for her to smack him much more firmly in the back of the head.

 

“Hold still, idiot. You still got burns.”

 

“What’re you sorry for?”

 

He felt her sigh, the huff of air against his spine, but her hands kept moving, and the pain in his back was lessening, the pressure under his skin easing. 

 

“I shoulda...known how to teach you. Guess it don’t matter much now.”

 

“Ashe-”

 

“Shutup. Idiot. Don’t know who the hell you pissed off, to get this fuckin’ thing.”

 

Her voice was tight, and McCree recognized  _ that _ tone.

 

She didn’t know, but she was sure as Hell going to find out. 


	15. Legacy

He rolled up to the Viper Winery with the half-suspicion of someone walking into a trap, and with one Hanzo Shimada in his car. It had been too much to explain his half-suspicions about Jack Morrison, his sister’s dodgy behavior, his half-recognition of the name of the winery  _ and  _ mention that Jack desperately needed pomegranate wine apparently; so he’d just asked for an extra set of hands to carry however many crates Jack had ordered.

 

Hanzo certainly wasn’t fooled, but to Jesse’s relief he agreed in a heartbeat anyway. The drive to the winery had been quiet, but comfortable, the evening warm enough to keep the windows down, the ground holding the warmth of the only recently departed sun and Hanzo’s hair streamed back like a pennant in its loose ponytail. Jesse was glad he had to keep his eyes on the road- he was sure to be caught staring if he’d had the slightest opportunity. 

 

The gravel drive crunched softly under the tires, and there was a comfortable air between them that lasted all the way up until Jesse got to the door and opened it. 

 

And then he froze.

 

Inside, the sole occupant of the room froze too, dropping a case of wine with a crash. Hanzo tried to look around his shoulder right as Jesse tried to back out of the room, and Jesse tripped, falling over backwards as Hanzo tried to dive out of the way.

 

Inside the winery, the woman yelled-

 

“Bob! Do something!”

 

....and a massive earth elemental rose out of the dirt floor, and McCree could see the moment that Hanzo realized that he hadn’t been entirely honest about this trip. He looked more grouchy then genuinely fearful, that was a start.

 

“Hey Bob!” McCree extended a hand, trying for a calm smile.

 

“Help me up?”

 

Bob blinked, and for a second Jesse was scared the spell Ashe used to raise him had been modified. But then he extended his huge hand and closed it with the perfect amount of pressure around Jesse’s- pulling him up to his feet.

 

“Well now.” Ashe had recovered, waving her hands in a circle and pulling the bottles back up and into their original shapes in a swirl of white magic, trying not to look flustered. 

 

“Jesse McCree. You told me you’d write.”

 

“Been a bit busy.” She raised an eyebrow at him, and for a minute he could taste the dust in the town they’d both been raised in. That was the stare she’d given him the first time they’d met- deciding whether or not he was worth killing. He grinned. It was good to remember, after all these years, that there were people who could  _ absolutely murder him _ at the slightest provocation. It felt like home.

 

“Well I’m running an honest business here, so if you don’t have  _ honest business  _ you’d better walk your ass back out that door.”

 

“Aww, Nothing to say for an old friend?”

 

“Oh, right, there is one thing I guess.  _ Go fuck yourself. _ ”

 

Hanzo cleared his throat, at Jesse’s shoulder. 

 

“We do have business, actually. Morrison order?” 

He shot McCree a scathing look, and McCree shrugged.

 

“Ah, Ashe, this is my coworker Hanzo. Hanzo, this is an old friend of mine I was pretty sure my sister killed a couple centuries ago.”

 

Ashe dropped the crate again, swearing as it landed on her toes, and Hanzo turned back to Jesse.

  
“You couldn’t have phrased that with a bit more tact?”

 

“Unfortunately, there’s just no good way of sayin’ it.”

 

Ashe reformed the bottles again, wielding one of them like she planned to throw it.

 

“Your fucking  _ sister _ ? The Shadow’s your fucking  _ sister? _ ”

 

“I’m sure she’ll be flattered you remember her.”

 

“Remember her?? Remember her! She fucking stuck me in the middle of a graveyard in Lithuania covered in so many crosses and so much silver it took me a hundred years just to break the fucking coffin! I think I’ve  _ still  _ got grave dirt in my nails!”

 

Jesse winced.

“Yeah that sounds like her.”

 

“Of course it does you fuckin’ menace-”

“-If I may. The wine? For Jack Morrison?” Hanzo’s tone had a hint of steel in it, and McCree and Ashe broke off like scolded children. Ashe waved a hand at Bob. 

 

“Morrison order. What’re you gettin’ mixed up with him for, anyhow?”

 

Jesse shrugged.

  
“We work together. Is he...mixed up in anything? I wasn’t aware he was anything but human.” Not entirely true, but he had to save face with Hanzo somehow.

 

Ashe didn’t seem fooled either, raising an eyebrow.

  
“Now I know you got better instincts than that.” 

 

McCree felt Hanzo’s glare and he sighed. 

 

“Okay, the man’s creepy, but that was as far as my sense of it went. No ideas about his parentage.”

 

Ashe snorted.

 

“That man has no parentage. But far be it from me to out a loyal customer.”

 

She held out the box and slapped on a fake grin.

 

“Thank you for your business. Get the Hell out.”


	16. Names

When he was younger, Jesse had strange dreams. 

 

They slipped away from him in the mornings, usually all the faster with Ashe’s voice in his ear telling him there was some new disaster they needed to move on. The rare mornings that he found himself in silence, usually before the sun rose, he could almost see their faces. He could almost smell fruit on the tree in the gardens.

 

He’d never seen an orchard. The first time Ashe tossed him a pomegranate off a stolen freight it baffled him, because it seemed so damn familiar. The weight of it in his palm, the color it stained his hands. 

 

Somewhere, in the hours between the moon’s highest crest and it’s fall, he dreamed of a cavern filled with trees, and an old story his mother had once told him, from across the sea, about how the seasons changed. The gods hadn’t been real to him then, but he’d listened, even though parts of the story rang wrong in his ears in a way that they shouldn’t have.

 

He and Sombra didn’t talk about their father. It was an unspoken rule for most of their lives, and he knew that he would never hear the whole of it. But one night, they were in Greece, and Sombra had started leading them down a river. She was trying not to look as though her steps had any purpose, a forced casual air to her steps, but Jesse knew. He’d done research as soon as he could get his hands on the information. It was 1960, and the new decade felt less like new things and more like the start of a new cycle.

 

“Thought they found the Necromanteion a few years back.”

 

Sombra did not stiffen, did not even turn and dignify him with a response.

“It’s a fucking fortified farmhouse. That’s not it.”

“You could always share that information with the powers that be.”

 

Sombra snorted.

“And tell them what? That I’m old enough to know Hellenistic architecture when I see it? That my papa would be furious if he could see them devoting a farmhouse to him?”

 

Jesse huffed. Sombra would never give anything to him straight. He was always left picking up the puzzle pieces she dropped when he already had the image in his head.

 

“Can’t imagine Hades being terribly fond-”

 

Sombra turned, a strange expression on her face, startling Jesse into silence.

  
“Don’t call him that.”

 

He didn’t hear that tone often. Her voice sounded empty without it’s mocking edge.

When he didn’t say anything else, she clicked her tongue.

 

“Names. Idols, genders, identities, images. They mean a lot to a place, to a time, but not to things like us. Not those. We should choose our own names, for our families to call us. He wouldn’t-” 

 

She looked pained.

 

“He wouldn’t have liked you calling him Hades.”

 

She didn’t tell him what to call him instead, and Jesse didn’t push. Sombra wasn’t much of a talker. Well, she’d go on for hours about the newest technology, about her magic, about the weather, but she was a closed soul. He could tell this was already too much for her.

 

“Well now. What should I be calling you, then?”

 

She looked thrown, but when she grinned, it was genuine.

 

“What makes you think Sombra isn’t my name?”

 

Jesse rolled his eyes.

  
“Because I actually speak Spanish?”

 

She shrugged.

 

“Fair enough. It’s....Olivia. Columar. I don’t use it much, but if you need it, that’s what it is.”

 

Jesse thought a moment.

  
“What’s mine?”

 

Sombra rolled her eyes.

 

“Oh come on, you think I believe  _ McCree  _ is your birth name?  _ Idiota.  _ You wear your true name on your sleeve.”

 

“You say that like it’s dangerous.”

 

She grinned, turning back to the river and starting up again along the shore.

  
“It might be. Guess you’ll just have to find out.”


	17. Debts

Coming out of the winery, Jesse blinked the fluorescence out of his eyes as they adjusted to the moon rising and tried to push away the old memories.

 

“Y’know, all things considered, I think that went well.”

 

He could  _ feel  _ Hanzo’s disbelieving stare, and he chuckled, tipping his hat.

 

“The last time I saw her I was dying and she was just about ready to sink fangs into anything that moved, so, we’re already worlds ahead ‘a  _ that. _ ”

 

Hanzo almost smiled- Jesse could tell by the little twitch in the corner of his lips, but he seemed to catch himself, frowning as another thought occurred to him.

 

“What is she doing in this area? There is certainly something happening in the forest. Perhaps we should see if she knows anything about it.” He glanced back at the door, and then grimaced.

  
“Perhaps another time.”

 

Jesse hummed his agreement, heading to the car. 

 

“While we’re  _ not  _ doing that, do ya’ wanna get dinner? I think the old man goes to bed early, we can give him his wine tomorrow.”

 

Hanzo’s steps stopped a moment, and McCree was careful to seem relaxed as he unlocked the car and turned back as he opened the door. 

 

Hanzo was looking at him too closely. 

 

It made Jesse’s heart clench, because it was the face of a man waiting for a dagger to be planted in his back. A carefully guarded suspicion, hidden behind a facade of apathy with cracks in far too many places. Jesse tried for a smile.

 

“Figure I owe ya’, given that I didn’t share my suspicions.”

 

Hanzo relaxed immediately, and Jesse tried not to feel a pang in his chest. He remembered being young, his word worth only as much as he could exchange for it. Genji and Sombra had broken him of the habit. For all her complaints, Sombra followed him everywhere. 

 

And Genji had been with them, until he wasn’t. 

 

He got in the car.

__

 

The drive was quiet for a while before Hanzo spoke- Jesse wasn’t startled, Hanzo had been making an expression like he had something to say and was only trying to work out the right way of putting it. 

 

“Ashe was the woman in your story, wasn’t she?”

 

“The one and only.”

 

It was silent for a little longer, and then Hanzo forced it out.

 

“I apologize if this is none of my business but- your story didn’t mention how you lost your arm, and it must have been a fairly grievous injury if you were unable to recover it.”

 

Jesse hummed, thoughtful, drumming his fingers on the wheel.

 

“It’s been a while since it was a sore subject, so I don’t mind. But it didn’t have anythin’ to do with Ashe- or Som, for that matter. She missed it happening. We officially met, without the guns and all, ‘round 1920. I lost the arm....before the great war? Thereabouts?”

 

“And what happened?”

 

Jesse chuckled, pulling into the parking lot of a diner.

 

“I made some powerful enemies.”

 


	18. Genji

For a brief period after the west was won but before the great war (and despite everything, it would always be ‘the great war’ in his mind, he couldn’t stand to put the number in front of it, to think about the world torn asunder  _ twice _ in his lifetime) Jesse McCree had fancied himself a hunter.

 

It seemed like a fair enough choice in profession- folks having run ins with the nastier side of the supernatural, and what better way to deal with a monster then with a monster?

 

Later, he thought he must have been half crazy to even consider it. Folks are just as likely to turn on the hunter as they are to thank him (or pay him). He’d been smart, he’d been lucky, he’d done his best to kill beasts and not men.

 

For a while, anyway. 

 

And then he got the assignment to kill Genji.

 

It seemed simple enough- at first- big great white wolf, supposedly eating people and bringing down storms on their heads. He figured it was a ghost, or elemental spirit, he just needed to figure out what it wanted and appease it, easy peasy. Either that or a starved werewolf and the storms were a coincidence. Either way, he brought along a freshly slain boar and some charms for good measure, and it took him quite a while to realize that he’d fucked up which part of the story was a definite lie.

 

Because the killings had nothing to do with the thing in the mountains, but the weather sure as hell did.

 

And that was no wolf.

 

And so, ass deep in a flash flood, holding a boar over his head, and getting an eyeful of  _ white tiger  _ he was pretty sure that A. he was so, so very fucking dead and B. these villagers were fucking  _ idiots. _

 

Honestly, McCree would have been happier if the story had ended there. If Genji had bit his arm off and that had been that. But no, he’d sort of lobbed the boar forward and Genji had a good laugh and stopped the rain. They’d talked, and the way it played out was that it was probably a misunderstanding- and so McCree, young and naive, had gone down to relay the good news.

 

Turns out that it was less of a “misunderstanding” and more of a “lie” and they were a “cult” and that they’d been pitting immortals against each other in the hopes one would kill the other, and when he’d gotten back they’d strapped him down to a silver table carved in sigils of the moon’s waxing and waning that paralyzed him, carved those symbols into his arms, and had cut the first one off when Genji came barreling out of the woods with the force of the storm behind him.

 

The carver had been nearly into his neck, but Genji tore the machine apart with his teeth- a white blur against the gray and blue of the storm and the bright red splash of cultists going down against his teeth and his claws.

 

That was about when Jesse decided he needed to get out of the country for a while, and Genji had concurred, and they’d gone barreling off into China and done their damndest to avoid the first world war.

 

Jesse still wondered about those sigils- they hadn’t been used against him since, but it bothered him, put an itch in his skin. When he’d gone north to meet a smith to make him a prosthetic he could handle (or rather, that could handle him) the man (the scion of an old norse god, if he wasn’t one himself, his hammer looked rather familiar) had looked....disturbed.

 

_ The goddess of the moon thrives in secrecy. This bears ill fruit. _

 

Something about that sounded....familiar. But Jesse couldn’t put his finger on quite what.


	19. friends

Jesse finished the story with a shrug.

 

“So my friend stayed behind in China, and I went back to America and was more officially introduced to Sombra a few years later. Those sigils were nasty stuff- Torb’ had ta’ burn them out to be able to attach the prosthetic. It hasn’t ‘borne ill fruit’ yet, as he so elegantly put it, but it gives me a bad feelin’. I don’t work so well outta this arm. Granted, I’ve never been much for the subtler stuff, but i’m half useless now.”

 

“I doubt that.” Hanzo’s voice was gentle, but firm. It left no room for argument, so McCree didn’t fight him on it. It put a warm little thrill in his chest. Hanzo seemed embarrassed that he’s said even that much and taken a long drink from the mug in front of him. They’d settled into their booth, ordered their coffee, and recieved it, and Jesse had told his story without mind to the people around him, who had probably seem weirder anyway. The waitress seemed to assume that he was a writer and that they were rehearsing a play, coming back to them with stars in her eyes each time and hanging around a little bit more than was necessary to refill their coffee each time he took a sip. One cue, as he set it down, she was at his elbow again, trying to listen unsubtly. (it wasn’t working.)

 

McCree grinned, nodding to her.

 

“I don’t know much about this goddess of the moon business. Reminds me of an old line my sister said right before she shot me in the chest. The moon will rise, no matter what anyone does. And that’s what’s strange. I’ve never met any children of this goddess of the moon, and surely there are a few deities associated, but i’ve never met any of them either. I’ve seen a lot in my time, some other children of the night, some cousins of mine. None of the moon goddesses kids. Maybe they stay mortal, think they’re somethin’ else. Damned suspicious.”

 

Hanzo hummed, flipping a few pages in japanese on his tablet as though he was reading. (it was a romance novel, he was willing to bet on the waitresses lack of linguistic prowess).

 

“I have not encountered any such beings either. It does seem strange, now that you mention it. There’s an old legend in my family that once we held the blood of dragons, and I thought, once, that I heard stories about the union of opposites. But it seemed we considered ourselves the land of the rising sun, and the moon was the domain of the west.”

 

He sounded a bit overdramatic, but screw it, if he had to play the part he may as well play it well. 

 

McCree nodded.

 

“My family seemed to consider the moon further east. We’re where the sun sets, not where the moon rises. Europe, maybe.”

 

The corner of Hanzo’s mouth twitched.

 

“I think perhaps that’s your old american sense of rivalry speaking. Has your sister ever clarified her point?”

 

McCree sighed with the appropriate degree of drama, but when the waitress stepped away again he made a face.

 

“She’s a fuckin’ pest who loves being mysterious. Makes me wish that I was on speakin’ terms with Ashe.”

 

Hanzo hummed. He was rather glad McCree wasn’t on speaking terms with Ashe, for reasons that he wasn’t quite willing to admit to himself just yet. Perhaps, he allowed himself, it was jealousy only of their old familiarity, a rapport in between the spaces in their insults. Between the lines, as McCree would put it. Even their insults felt like an old dance they’d practiced many times.

 

Hanzo had never known such familiarity. Not that he....desired. It. with McCree. But perhaps it would have been nice to have a friend for so many lifetimes.

 

Yes, he thought. It would have been nice to have good company that would weather the centuries. Good company. Friendship. Just that. 

 

Just that.


	20. Seal

Sombra smiled just a touch too knowingly when Hanzo joined them on their next hunt. 

 

It was the night before thanksgiving- and really, Jesse had too much to worry about already to be fussing over how much his sister was going to make fun of him once they got home. He was just happy to have someone else watching his back, because something felt....worse.

 

The New Moon used to be easy for them. It was a relief- Jesse knew it was the height of Sombra’s powers, and even through his bad arm and the lesser stretch of his tattoo he could feel what she did. The shadows. The night stretching endless with possibility. They could go anywhere- take a few steps and get to the edge of the night just before the dawn poked up out of the horizon.

 

Tonight felt strange. Jesse felt the energy as he always did, but tonight it was an almost uncomfortable intensity, like a thunderstorm under his skin. 

 

Sombra didn’t give anything away, but they’d known each other a long time. Her shoulders were tense, her fingers clenching and unclenching.

 

Still, they were an hour out before it happened.

 

One moment they were following in the tracks of the thing, and then Jesse felt like the ink was peeling itself off his skin. Like a pair of wings were opening from his back. Like- 

 

Sombra made a tiny, pained sound, and they both went down. Jesse felt Hanzo’s hands on his shoulder.

 

“-Jesse, what’s-”

 

“Give him a minute.”

 

Jesse barely registered the sound of an older man’s voice. It felt like his soul was tearing from his spine. Next to him, Sombra was on the ground.

  
The last thing he heard before he blacked out was-

 

“- _ Dad?” _

 

And the sound of a monstrous scream.

 


	21. Prepared

When Jesse woke up, there was someone standing over him. He reacted, in half a haze, by trying to swing his arm up to hit them in the back of the kneecaps so he could run, but the impact of his arm against the back of the man’s legs did absolutely nothing- bounced off like rubber against a wall.

 

His vision coalscened a bit. He was....still in the woods, only, in a different part of it, and the dawn was breaking in between the trees. They were underneath a huge tree, and though he thought he’d been through every inch of the woods, he’d never seen it before.

 

After the branches came into focus, the face above his did too.

 

“Jack?” Jesse choked out. 

 

“That’s Mr. Morrison to you, kid, especially since you just punched me in the kneecap.”

 

“Sorry.” Jesse responded, instinctually, before he actually start trying to process what was happening around him. 

 

The tree swayed in a wind he couldn’t quite feel, and as it did, he saw movement in the collar of Jack’s shirt. A branch moved in his tattoo, back and forth. 

 

“Shit.” Jesse managed.

 

There was a groan next to him, and he half rolled onto his side. Sombra was wiped out on the ground next to him, looking about as fucked up as he’d ever seen her. Shadows were leaking from the cuts on her cheeks and from the corner of her eyes like tears, and her skin was mottled over in bruises. The sight had hardly made its impression on his eyes before he shot up.

 

“Hanzo-”

 

“Here.”

 

McCree twisted. Hanzo was leaning against the tree, his arms folded across his chest. He was scowling- but it was at Jack and not at McCree, and Jesse was willing to take that as a good sign. He felt a lot like glaring at Jack at the moment, too.

 

Jack rolled his shoulders, seeming unbothered.

 

“So I know you have all got a lot of questions, but unfortunately, so do I. So we’re gonna start there, because I’m not a very patient man.”

 

He snapped his fingers, and before McCree could react a vine burst from the ground, wrapping around Sombra and hauling her to her feet. She seemed only half conscious, dangling, blinking her eyes as though they couldn’t quite focus. 

 

“What.” Jack hissed. “Did. You. Do.”

 

McCree tried to get up, but Jack lifted his hand, and a vine curled around his legs and lashed him to the ground.

  
“I wouldn’t recommend getting in my way right now. Ah- no. not you either.” the tree Hanzo had been leaning against grew another branch that lashed around Hanzo as he started forward.

 

“Really, you kids need to learn cause and effect.”

 

“Who are you?” Hanzo choked out, struggling against the branch. Jack rolled his eyes.

 

“What did I just say? I’m getting my answers first. And then you can play 20 questions.  _ Olivia Colomar. I need your answer. What did you do? _ ”

 

Jesse flinched at the force behind the words, hearing the magic twisted in them. Sombra’s whole body jolted, like an electric shock.

  
“I broke the goddamn seal.” She managed, hissing between her teeth. “It was supposed to get him back it wasn’t supposed to-”

 

“And who told you how to do that, exactly?”

 

Sombra didn’t answer, and Jack sighed.

 

“Alright, i’m not going to compel you. I already know.”

 

The vines dropped Sombra, and Jesse lunged to catch her as the vines holding him down receded. Her knees went to jelly- crumbling completely as she fell into his arms. 

 

“Now then.” Jack brushed a fallen leaf from his shoulder.

 

“Since you’ve so effectively bullshitted your brother and his beloved-”

  
“-hey!”

 

“That’s really not what you’re going to want to focus on.”

 

Jack tipped his head, looking uninterested, and as he did Jesse’s vision shifted into focus.

 

He had pretty good night vision- near complete, but it was typically in shades of gray. He only got color when there was another light source. Jack’s eyes were an icy, piercing blue, and his hair-

 

His hair had been silver.

 

Jesse sat back, looking closer. Jack’s wrinkles had mostly disappeared, and- and he was a source of the light.

 

He was glowing.

 

“Fuck.” Jesse breathed.

 

“Now.” Jack said, pleasantly. “You’re beginning to get the idea. While we’re playing the fun revelations game, here’s one- Your father sacrificed both of us to try to keep the goddess of the moon sealed. Now i’m here, he’s out there, and you know where she is?”

 

Jack pointed at the west.

 

As if on queue, the shadows began to pull away, and the moon came out. Only, bigger, and far brighter then it should be, even as it set. Jesse flinched, feeling the shadows peel away from him.

 

“So that’s about the shape of it!”

 

Jack seemed bizarrely cheerful, given that McCree had never seen him smile before.

 

“We’re all gonna die.”

 

“You knew our dad?”

 

Jack sighed.

  
“Man, you are just really determined to grab on to the wrong details.”

McCree grimaced.

  
“I’m starting with the things I think I can deal with.”

 

“Well, how’s this one- I  _ more _ than know your dad. I  _ married _ him.”

 

McCree blinked.

 

“Huh. I was wrong. I can  _ not _ deal with that.”

 

“Well, then let me make this easier on both of us.”

 

Jack reached out, and before McCree could move to defend himself, pressed his palm to his forehead.

 

The world went white.

 


	22. If

Jesse dreamed.

 

He was sitting at a worn wooden table, one he’d sat at a thousand times. It was...a long time ago. The men coming into the bar were hard sorts, chattering away in Spanish and Chinese and English, wearing the rough clothes of the ranch and the range. 

 

He knew this place.

 

The High Side. Kind of ironically named, for its clientele, but it was usually clean, and the food was good. He couldn’t usually afford to eat here except-

 

He looked across the table.

 

There was a man sitting on the other side of the table, clear, for the first time. He was older- long black curls fell around his shoulders, and his skin was dark and scarred like pine bark. His beard was neatly trimmed- not a common sight for those years.

 

He smiled, and not even his scars could make that gesture threatening. He had crows feet at the corners of his eyes, like a man who was accustomed to smiling. 

 

“Have you been eating well?”

 

McCree looked down at the table, at his own hands folded on it. One of them was metal, and it reassured him.

 

“...been years since that was a problem.”

 

“There’s more to life than surviving, kid. Even if you don’t need to eat, it’s a comfortable experience, to share a meal with someone you love. Been a long time since I could.”

 

“...What’s your name, Dad?”

 

The man on the other side of the table looked pained.

 

“Wish I remembered. It’d make things easier. Jack might know, but it might not matter. I don’t know if there’s enough of me left to hear it.”

 

“But you’re here, aren’t you?”

 

Even as Jesse said it, he realized it was wrong. The other people in the bar had blurred faces- looked the way they looked in his memories, when he could no longer remember them. Their names were gone. Maybe he’d never known, but the only clear person in the room was his father, who gave off a kind of light of his own.

 

“I wish I was. Sharing a meal with you. I guess Jack will have to do it in my stead.”

 

“-Sombra wanted-”

 

“There’s no getting me back, kid. I just wanted to see you one last time, before you have to put me down. I don’t have a lot of time, and neither do you. You’re going to have to find the scion of the goddess of the moon. Find them, and you’ve got her.”

 

The man looked at Jesse, and he smiled, but there was something a bit sad about it.

 

“You’ve grown up well. I’m proud of both of you.”

 

“Dad-”

 

The man placed his hands over Jesse’s, and Jesse...couldn’t feel them, not really. Instead he felt the way he did when his shadows stretched long in the dark, the old call to power.

 

The man tipped his head.

 

“Safe travels.”

 

“No-”

 

The dream dissolved, and McCree came-to in a warmly lit house, on a dingey brown couch. He looked down. He was covered in a pomegranate print blanket, and he grimaced at it, but made it a point to fold it neatly before he set it aside. The living room seemed to be empty- littered with more pomegranate themed cloth goods and statues, and McCree didn’t spend too long looking around before he got up to look for Jack.

 

The house looked almost exactly how Jesse pictured it, and that amused him as he wandered the halls, looking at framed paintings of trees and flowers. 

 

He found everyone in the kitchen- Jack cooking something on the counter as Sombra argued with him and tossed in ingredients from the side. Hanzo was sitting at the table, looking uncomfortable, and for a moment, Jesse could pretend everything was normal.

 

Like they’d just come in for Thanksgiving Dinner.

 

But then Sombra turned, and McCree saw the bright angry red lines on her neck where her tattoos used to be, and the illusion was gone. 

 

“So.” He tried to keep his tone conversational. “Had a dream. Pretty sure whatever’s left of our pops just talked to me to say goodbye. Not a fan of that.”

 

Sombra looked to Jack, and Jack turned, letting Sombra tug the bowl he was holding out of his hands.

 

“Well, that’s how Gabe is. Self sacrificing bastard.”

 

“Gabe?” McCree could taste a fraction of the power in the name, some small part of a whole. 

 

Jack smiled, and it looked distinctly unfriendly.

  
“I’ll give you the whole thing when you need it, kid. Bad manners, as always.”

 

Jesse felt himself about to rise to that, but then the doorbell rang.

 

Sombra raised her eyebrows at Jack, who just kept smiling.

 

“Would you mind getting the door,  _ Jesse? _ ” 

 

Jesse tried not to wince, but there was no way he hadn’t done that on purpose, because the word ran through him like electricity. 

 

“Sure thing,  _ Jack. _ ” and Jesse wasn’t expecting it to work, wasn’t expecting to feel the static on his lips and see Jack flinch. He gawked a moment too long and Jack once again made a meaningful gesture at the door. 

 

-

 

With how Jesse’s day (night? week?) was going, he wasn’t entirely surprised to see Ashe in the doorway. She didn’t seem entirely surprised to see him either- but she had the same look of tired resignation he was sure he was sporting, so he was pretty sure she hadn’t been expecting to see him either. She shouldered past.

 

“Lets get this over with.”

 

“Hello to you too.”

 

Ashe waved at him dismissively over her shoulder, and he had to suppress a smile as he closed the door behind her. Some things never changed. 

 

Ashe went blazing into the kitchen, McCree a step behind her, and only glared at Sombra a little bit as she leaned against the wall. McCree went to go sit next to Hanzo, who shot him a grateful smile that most definitely didn’t make his heart skip a beat no sir. 

 

Ashe very pointedly did not look at Sombra, who was putting stuffing in the oven, and focused in her red-eyed stare on Jack.

 

“What’s the plan?”   
  


Jack rubbed his forehead. He looked tired, and it seemed to shape his face into it’s more familiar visage- the wrinkles reappearing in his forehead and his cheeks.

 

“We need Moira’s other child.”   
  
“Other child?” Hanzo asked, and even as he did, Jesse worked it out.

 

He couldn’t help the little wheezing noise he made, and Ashe glared at him. 

 

“We don’t choose our parents, Jess.”

 

“I- ain’t unaware of that, don’t get me wrong. Just....wouldn’t have figured it.”

 

Ashe gestured to herself and raised an eyebrow.

 

McCree huffed.

“Well yes the nocturnal vampire vibes n’ all, I just...didn’t know you were-”

 

“I haven’t died.”   
  


The words were clipped, and McCree got the sense that he really shouldn’t push it. Mercifully, Jack didn’t seem inclined to let the silence sit for too long.

 

“I know where she is, but we don’t have a lot of time. Moira gets stronger as the moon waxes, and if we don’t take her out when she’s at her weakest we’re not going to have much of a chance.”

 

“How can we fight her?” Sombra’s tone was easy, but she was eyeing Ashe like a cat that was considering bolting. 

 

“Well.” Jack’s tone was cheerful, and for once it didn’t seem terribly forced.

 

“It’s a method that you’re familiar with.”   
  


___

 

Given that McCree hadn’t known that he was going to be fighting the goddess of the moon any greater than 12ish hours ago, he hadn’t really had any guesses on what it was going to entail.

 

If he had guessed, “getting matching tattoos” would not have been it. 

  
  


He was grateful he’d avoided getting any tattoos on his chest, because the sight of Sombra trying to work around Hanzo’s had him wincing in sympathy. After a moment, Hanzo sighed and ran a hand along his arm, and-

 

Jesse watched in wonder as the swirling red dragons swirled off his skin in a tiny tornado of light, curling around his shoulder and running down his back, where they seemed to push back into his skin. 

 

Hanzo raised an expectant eyebrow at everyone gaping at him.

 

“Get on with it.”   
  


Despite his bravado, McCree could see the way he set his jaw as Sombra started the tattoo on the palm of his hand. She and Jack worked together, throwing around magic into his skin and into the ink bottles, and when they were finished they moved on to Ashe, and then to McCree. By the time it came time to work on Sombra, the sun was hanging low in the sky, and Jack waved McCree over.

“You’re going to have to help.”

 

“Me? But I-” The words stopped in McCree’s throat.  _ Couldn’t. Never learned. Never- _

 

He felt a hand on his elbow, and a tiny spark up to his shoulder. Hanzo smiled at him, and despite the tightness in the corners of his eyes, an the agony of the last few days, it warmed McCree, same as it always had.

 

_ I should tell him. _

 

But the moment passed again, and Hanzo brushed his hair back behind his ear with his fingers and spoke. 

 

“Let me help. I can channel for you. That is the purpose of these tattoos, correct?” 

 

It wasn’t really a question, but Hanzo waited for Jack to nod, anyway- out of courtesy if nothing else. Hanzo placed his hand- pressed his inked palm against Jesse’s chest, and smiled reassuringly.

 

“Whenever you’re ready.”

 

For a moment, McCree felt his throat start to close. The little magic he had was instinctual, how could he-

 

There was a warmth, in his chest, under Hanzo’s hand- a tingling spread from the point of contact and across his skin. There was a gentle tug, nothing more than an invitation, and McCree looked up at Hanzo, who tipped his head. His eyes were soft, understanding, and suddenly- it was easy.

 

He pushed.

 

There had been some strain before- it had felt as though he was working through and around the tattoo, pipes stopped and opened and complications in wiring. Like his magic was restrained. For the first time, it was a call and response. He called, and he felt the shadows like the nights in the desert, empty and open and coated in stars, moving across his skin like the breeze in the dark.

 

He felt Hanzo take it in his hands, felt it pour into the ink in Hanzo’s palms and through him, and Hanzo tipped his other hand, and pure concentrated darkness ran through his fingers and into the bottle of ink Jack was holding out towards them. 

 

Jack inspected it, nodded approvingly, and ran his palm over it. For a moment, it went a brilliant emerald green, and then it faded into a mossy darkness. A forest floor. 

They worked their way through Sombra’s tattoos that way, Hanzo pulling the magic through McCree’s chest and into the angrier red parts of the fresh tattoo. They healed under his hands, and the more they did, the more the pressure in Jesse’s chest eased. He had faith in them. 

 

The moment they finished, Sombra was on her feet and heading towards the door, pulling her shirt back on as she went. 

 

“We’ve gotta get as close to Seattle as we can before the moon rises.”

 

McCree missed Hanzo’s hand on his chest the moment he pulled it away, but Hanzo reached down to wrap his fingers around McCree’s and pull him forward.

 

“We don’t have much time.”

 

His tone was serious, but there was something in his eyes that said that maybe McCree’s heart rate when he’d been channeling hadn’t gone unnoticed. 

 

_ Later.  _ McCree thought.  _ Once we’ve gotten through this. _

 

If they got through this.

 


	23. Backup

They didn’t make it to Seattle.

 

They didn’t have much warning- Jack had told them that the full moon was an illusion, but it shone like a spotlight and Jesse could feel the magic he’d managed to hold onto slipping through his fingers in the light as it rose. One minute the shadows were stretching long in the twilight- and it unnerved McCree, how he could feel them but couldn’t step into them, couldn’t just take a step and be where he needed to be-

 

The next the moon cleared the horizon, and down the highway, a creature appeared out of the shadow, and Jesse’s chest clenched, because he could see it now. There was no more fuzz in his senses, no more questions or doubts. 

 

The creature in the road looked to be something like an enormous black wolf, and it wore a skull over its face- or the shadows that made up its body pulled away to reveal something white and ghastly, and when it screamed there was something wrenching about it, something human and animal that nearly had McCree letting go of the wheel of the car to cover his ears. 

 

Jack reached out to steady the wheel.

 

“Keep going.” His voice cut through the sound like the bow of a boat in frozen water, and McCree felt his palms tighten. He took a deep breath, and kept driving. Jack got up on the seat- they were driving his stupid fucking convertible- And stood, steady as a stone despite the fact that the car was rapidly approaching 90 mph.

 

He extended his hand, and as he did, McCree could see flowers blooming on his skin, twisting themselves between the strands of his hair, which was turning gold in the light collecting in his outstretched hand.

 

He said a single word, in a language Jesse had never heard, but somehow, in his bones, he knew what it meant.

 

_ I’m sorry. _

 

And then the light blasted from his palm like a beacon, and blasted a tunnel just as they hit the body of the creature. McCree flinched, and saw Sombra do the same, as something ripped through them at the moment the thing was hit. They were wrapped in suffocating darkness for a moment, and then they were through, and the thing screamed again behind them.

 

“Was that-”

 

“Best not to ask questions you don’t want the answers to, kid. Keep your eyes on the road. We should be rendezvousing with our contact soon.”

 

“We will? We’re going 90-”

 

“Eyes on the fucking  _ road-” _

 

McCree turned around, and immediately had to swerve as something- someone, stood in his lane. They shot past, holding on for dear life, and McCree didn't make out anything besides a flash of bright red out of the corner of his eye.

 

“Fuck.”

 

And that was Ashe’s voice, and she twisted in the backseat and aimed her gun backwards, pulling the trigger.

 

In the rearview mirror, McCree could see the figure he’d driven around. It was a woman in a white dress that fell off her shoulders, cinched around her waist with a blood red sash the same color as her hair. Ashe’s shot went dead through her forehead, but it didn’t seem to do anything but ruffle her hair. Jesse swore he saw her laugh. 

 

She lifted her hand and snapped her fingers.

 

The tires on the car blew out, and Ashe went off the back as the car started to swerve, the rims hitting the concrete with a soul-wrenching screech. Jack grabbed onto the window, and Hanzo grabbed onto the back of the seat as Jesse slammed on the brakes and tried to get them into a controlled stop- they'd swerved off onto the shoulder, but McCree managed to get the car to stop before they hit a tree.

 

For a couple seconds, they sat in the car, trying to catch their breath. And then Jack’s hands came up with brutal speed, and there was the green flash of a barrier and the bright silver of something hitting it, whiting out the landscape so for a moment Jesse could only see in licks of shadow- the twist of Hanzo’s features as he held on, trying not to be thrown by the wave of force.

 

Sombra wasn’t so lucky- she’d started to get up as they came to a stop, and the wave of force that made it through Jack’s shield send her flying, slamming into a tree 10 feet back. 

 

McCree only got as far as making sure that she was still breathing- she started to get up again, and then another wave of force hit the car. Jack seemed better prepared for it that time, and Jesse could see the light diffuse as it hit the shield, simmer like steam into the air.

 

“Why do you keep fighting?”

 

The woman’s voice carried far more clearly then it should have, sounding like a bell in his ears, ringing loud enough to make McCree grit his teeth. 

 

“There is little purpose in it.”

 

“You have my husband.” Jack’s voice is even, but McCree can see the tension in the set of his back.  

 

The woman- Moira, Jack had called her Moira- spread her hands- and if it weren’t for the way her nails caught the light and shone like claws, it would have looked disarming.

 

“I can give him back. I’ll have no need of him once the moon’s full.”

 

Jack didn’t answer, but with blinding speed threw his hand forward like he was pitching a ball. A meteor of green light went streaking toward moira- her arms lifted to block but the force pushed her back, her feet dragging along the ground. When she dropped her arms, they were smoking.

 

She smiled, but there were fangs in it this time.

 

“Fine then. We do this the hard way.”

  
  


She lifted her hand, and for a fraction of a second McCree could see the silver light pooling around her fingers and braced himself for the impact.

 

And then there were two loud shots.

 

One voice wasn’t familiar- it was high pitched, feminine, laughing- british. “Cheers, love!”

 

The other was in japanese, and a sound he’d heard many times.

 

_ “The dragon becomes me!” _

 

And Genji came blazing in- a font of harsh neon green to the warm spring of Jack’s magic, and on his other side was a petit british woman glowing the blue of a falling star, and between them-

 

Between them was a scared looking woman with Moira’s bright red hair.

 

The woman in blue grinned, tipping her head, and there was a bright blue curl in the air over her chest.

 

“Cavalry's here!”


	24. All the time in the world

There was quite a lot of yelling all at once.

 

Moira’s voice carried the furthest, and so McCree felt the word  _ “Emily-” _ in his bones, but he yelled the same moment Hanzo did-

 

“GENJI?”

 

And it clicked, in his head, why Genji seemed like exactly the kind of brother Hanzo would have.

 

Ashe wrenched him out of his daze, grabbing him by the arm and hauling him off to the side.

 

“We need to move now we’re not going to get another chance-”

 

She blocked another blow, and Jesse saw the other red-haired woman pull a long white whip out of thin air and send it whistling towards Moira- falling back as she did. Ashe hauled him forward, and they were in a circle.

 

“NOW!”

 

Sombra’s voice came out of the dark all around him, and he felt his cells sing at the sound- and he  _ moved _ and he could feel himself half-turn to shadow as his hands came up and connected, like a circuit, in the circle.

 

It was like going underwater- for a moment- pressure in and around him that changed the shape of the world- but there was an even more enormous force from the center of the circle, from Moira- glowing silver, brighter and brighter, and-

 

And it wasn’t enough, and McCree saw it in slow motion. 

 

Moira lifted her hand, aiming for the weakest point in the circle that wasn’t one of her children. 

 

Hanzo.

 

Hanzo made eye contact with Jesse, and he smiled, and then the beam of light went through his chest.

 

The force of the circle breaking sent everyone hurtling backwards, but Jesse was back on his feet again in an instant, sprinting toward Hanzo. He fell to his knees, pulling Hanzo up into his arms.

 

“No- nononono-”

 

“Jess-” Hanzo coughed, and there was blood- fuck, fuck there was blood everywhere, and Jesse was helpless, there was no coming back from this.

 

“Jesse, I-”   
  


“No- no not now, not like this, darlin’-”

 

Hanzo smiled, and it was warm, and just as startling as the first time he saw it.

  
“Jesse. There is no need to fear.”

 

“What in the damn-”

 

“I love you.”

 

“I-” Jesse choked, his eyes going blurry from the tears he couldn’t stop. “I love you too.”

 

“Hold on.”

 

“H-”

 

Jesse’s arms tightened, instinctually, and everything went  _ gold _ . There was light all around him, and a warmth in his arms that should have felt like it was burning- but was somehow only perfectly comfortable. And through the light, he saw curls of red- shooting up like new years streamers, and then the dragons twisted from Hanzo’s skin and down his arm, one of each curling around the makeshift circuit. And Hanzo didn’t stand so much as came into being again upright, closing his hands around McCree’s and pulling him up.

 

And in the middle of the fight, magic still flashing around them as Jack tried to buy them time, the body of the wolf standing over Moira- Hanzo pressed his lips to McCree’s.

 

The kiss only lasted for a moment, a blink, but it felt like a promise that they’d make it through.

 

And Hanzo stepped up next to Genji, McCree’s hand in his.

 

Sombra was on McCree’s other side, and Ashe, Emily, and the girl in blue light were on the other side.

 

“You ready this time, loves?”

 

They didn’t answer in words, Jack just dropped the barrier, slamming his skull into the wolf’s as it lunged, and forcing his hands up and pushing out magic like Jesse had never felt.

 

The power of gods.

 

It coursed through his skin, and this time, when the circle closed, it held.

 

He could feel Moira struggling, feel the push of the darkness testing him, and his heart twisted as he remembered the look in the man at the table’s eyes.

 

And then Jack spoke, and it sounded like the laws of the land being written, and it rang through him the way Moira’s had- but it was warm, like spring, like the branches pushing through the earth.

 

_ “By the children and the darkness and the children of the moon, by the kin of dragons and the death of stars, by the rite of spring. Moira O’ Doirian. You have lost your claim on the earth. You have lost your claim on the night.” _

 

And then the pressure became blinding, and McCree felt as though something were tearing out of him, and he could see Ashe start to buckle under the pressure, her sister holding her arm.

 

Jack’s eyes were gold, and his voice rang-

 

_ “Give me back what you’ve stolen. Your promises are worthless. Gabriel Reyes is mine.” _

 

And the mask snapped, and the darkness wiped out his vision, and the last thing he felt before everything went dark again was the spell complete, and Moira’s screech vanishing into the air like a string being cut.

 

___

 

When he woke up he was on Jack’s couch again, looking at his  _ stupid fucking pomegranate print quilt  _ and for a moment he was worried he’d imagined the whole fight, the seal, the-

 

Hanzo.

 

He nearly shot up, but there was an arm around his waist that kept him in place, and when he looked down.

 

Hanzo’s head was on his chest and the arm across his chest had a spiraling dragon in golden ink.

 

McCree sighed and let his head fall back on the pillow. He turned, looking across the room to the other couch. 

 

On it, was Jack looking like he always had teaching the class- silver hair, scars. A hint of glitter at the edges that the glamor couldn’t quite cover. He was sound asleep, and on his chest was a dark man with curling black hair and a neatly trimmed beard.

 

They looked for all the world like any other couple, and McCree smiled to himself.

 

He let them sleep.

  
They had time. 

**Author's Note:**

> At long last, the bang! my posting's today and tomorrow and we'll be unfolding :3
> 
> https://eggchef.tumblr.com/post/184022856262/hey-i-was-part-of-the-second-mcbigbang-and-drew


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